Resident Evil: Escape
by Solar Eclipse23
Summary: Raccoon City has gone to hell in the wake of the T-Virus epidemic. Now a group of survivors must seek what sanctuary they can within the Raccoon City mall, as they try to fight their way out of a city crawling with the undead.
1. Prologue

September 22, 1998

7:38 p.m.

_The night is silent. Only the occasional sigh of a breeze stirs the calm air in the abandoned portion of the Industrial District. The left slice of a crescent moon illuminates a street below. To an outside observer, a hapless civilian, the street is simply one of many in the Industrial District's unused section: dilapidated, in need of road-repair, strewn with beat-down cars and unmoving autobuses. The vehicles sag, desolate and in a state of disrepair. Their once shiny paint jobs, which proclaimed "check me out!" in their prime, are now dull and listless, marred here and there with an ugly sheen of copper rust which has eaten away at the paint. Every few feet, one of the cars' hoods is open, like a gaping maw in want of transmission fluid or antifreeze._

_The street is lined with darkened, empty buildings which were once full of noise and the loud groans of machinery at work. However, they are now abandoned and useless, ripe with nothing but dust and old memories. From here, one could strain their ears and catch the barest hint of the clanging of newer machinery and the belch of factory chimneys in the New Industrial District, if one tried. But the street is empty: no one is trying._

_A certain factory, abandoned and empty, looks just like any other from the outside. However, beneath its rusted exterior it houses something much more sinister._

_Deep below the concrete sidewalks and cracked pavement, under the sub-basement levels of the old factory, which are now filled with broken-down machinery and empty oil canisters, the sewer system begins. However, if one were to look at blueprints for the city, one would not find this particular stretch of sewer system on any of the diagrams. They have been wiped from existence by the faceless corporation that designed them._

_The Umbrella Corporation._

_Deep within the tunnels of the water tanks and affluent pipes, a group of men walk quietly. They are dressed in crisp black riot gear, complete with gas masks and tinted lenses. Sharp muscles strain at their confining clothing. Tactical equipment and ammo packs are hoisted across their backs and shoulders. Gleaming weaponry, such as Tactical Machine Pistols and Submachine guns, are held firm in their hands._

_Somewhere close by, another man is working, but his appearance and demeanor are much different than the task force agents. He is dressed in a lab coat. It was white to begin with, so bright it hurt the eyes to look directly at it. Now, however, the coat is covered with stains and several other bleak liquids one would not want to identify._

_The man is inside a no-longer-clean laboratory room, hunched over a table, working diligently under the cheap glow of fluorescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. He has never liked them. In fact, he detests them. The hum they give off grates on his nerves, but he is too professional to allow such trivial things to break his focus. Undeterred, the man scrawls several formulas on a paper already covered with incomprehensible notes and equations. Every square inch of the lab is cluttered. Tables are overflowing with loose papers, notes tacked to the walls, vials of gleaming purple and green liquid hunched over the tables._

_Finishing his writing, the man quickly shoves several of the coloured vials into a silver carrying case. He pauses when inputting the last vial, one of the bright purple ones. A taut smile stretches over his yellowed teeth. He strokes the glass vial tenderly, almost lovingly. He starts to place the vial in the case, but changes his mind and empties the vial into a syringe, instead. He tucks it into his coat pocket._

_Suddenly a quick chorus of footsteps approaches his ears and the door to his lab slides open. He hears the sound of several weapons being cocked. "There he is," one of the men says. In the silence that follows, he can even hear their laboured breathing, sounding choppy and inhuman through their gas masks._

_William Birkin looks up._

_The agent at the head of the procession has his weapon trained directly at him. William backs away, the fingers of his right hand closing around the cold grip of a 9mm handgun lying on the table beside him. His other hand has not released the carrying case. His fingers clench more tightly around its smooth silver handle._

"_So, you've finally come," he sneers, slowly taking a step back. His eyes dart to the door, then back to the agents. He is aware of several beads of sweat forming on his brow. He itches to wipe them away, but if he moves his hand he will most certainly be shot._

"_Doctor, we're here to collect the G-Virus sample," the lead agent says flatly, the hands holding his TMP never wavering, never faltering. "Just hand it over and no-one need get hurt."_

_Birkin's eyes dart to the door again. "Sorry," he says in a sarcastic tone, returning his gaze to the advancing agents. "But I won't just hand over my life's work."_

"_Then we will be forced to kill you," the agent says. There is no emotion in his voice. Birkin recognizes the tone; he used it more times than he could count on his subjects and co-workers. The agent is also a practiced killer then. Birkin expected nothing less. If he had sensed emotion, he would have felt even more loathing and contempt for the Umbrella agent now pointing a gun at him._

"_The G-Virus is sheer perfection," Birkin snarls, taking another step back, his eyes flying between the door and the men. He wishes he would stop sweating. "Something far more complex than a hopelessly inferior mind like yours would be able to comprehend."_

_To the door. Back to the agents._

"_Last chance, Doctor," the agent says, unaffected by the insult. His finger tightens on the TMP's trigger._

_Door. Agents._

"_Go to –" Birkin starts, but before he can say 'hell,' he strays too close to a table and knocks a thermos of coffee to the floor. The loud snap it makes as it connects pierces the air like a gunshot. Birkin barely has time to widen his eyes before the men open fire. The noise is not deafening, but Birkin does not notice. His body is riddled with bullets. Dark red circles explode through his lab coat and add their colour to its decoration. As his twitching body slumps onto the floor, the lead agent thrusts a hand out at his men. _

"_Stop!" he commands. The gunfire ceases instantly. "You might hit the sample."_

_The agent takes three quick steps towards him kneels down. Birkin is too dazed to stop him as the man wrenches the carrying case from his feeble fingers. Birkin tries to close his grip around the case, but his fingers will not respond, and it is slid from his dying grasp. Electric jolts of pain are arcing through his body, but it isn't as bad as he had thought. He had shot people before, seen them scream and writhe. It wasn't nearly that bad. They were just weak._

_Birkin dimly hears "let's go" and then the sound of receding doorsteps. The door closes behind them, and he is alone, except for his choked breathing. As he looks around with dimming eyes, he can discern several shattered vials on the floor, and a group of rats enthusiastically licking the green and purple puddles. With his last ounces of strength, Birkin reaches into his dripping red lab coat, and to his relief feels the syringe in his pocket. Miraculously, the gunfire did not shatter it. _

_Birkin withdraws the syringe and plunges it into his skin. As the purple liquid courses into his veins, into his body, Birkin's eyes turn a searing red. A demonic growl rises on his lips…_

_xxxx _

September 22, 1998

8:12 p.m.

_Rick sighs loudly as he sloshes through the dirty sewer, his steps heavy. He has been working all day, and he is exhausted. The 32-year old maintenance worker is covered in sweat and smells like a plumbing pipe. As he stoops over, finds the leaking pipe he was assigned to fix and begins to open his tool kit, he finds himself thinking how the life of a maintenance worker is full of filth, grime, and exhausting tasks. Grunting heavily, he bends over and takes out a wrench._

_After banging away at the leaking pipe for several minutes, Rick becomes aware of a loud squeaking close by. Squinting in the gloom, he looks around. Unable to locate anything, he returns to work. However, he hears the sound again several seconds later._

_Rick looks up in annoyance once more, setting his wrench aside. This time he sees the glowing red eyes of a rat glaring at him from the darkness. Rick laughs. The little buggers were everywhere down here, a general hindrance to everyone. Amused, he starts to pick up the wrench again, when the rat bolts out of the darkness and runs right at him._

"_What the f-OW!"_

_Rick yells in alarm as the rat sinks its needle-sharp teeth into his sleeve, squeaking angrily and frothing at the mouth. Rick swings his arm back and forth, bellowing in pain, as the rat's teeth rip through his sleeve and puncture his skin. Snarling, Rick swings his arm as hard as he can, and the rat is dislodged, flying deep into a river of sewage. Its loud, angry squeaks soon die away as it is washed down the tunnel._

_Rick sits down heavily, clutching his meaty arm in his other hand, examining the bite as he fights for breath. A bright patch of blood has formed on his arm. Rick curses under his breath as he presses his sleeve into the cut, to stop the flow of blood._

"_Rick?" the voice of his co-worker, Max, drifts down the tunnel. "What the hell was that?"_

_Rick looks down the tunnel. There is no sign of any other rats._

"_Nothing. Bit by a rat. I'm comin' back now."_

_The maintenance worker collects his tools and marches off, stopping once to look at the dark tunnel behind him. It looks somewhat threatening in the blackness. _

Damn thing probably had rabies, _he thinks._ Fuck this…

_Rick walks back towards his partner. Soon, he'd be back on the surface and he could get the bite checked out. But it was probably nothing. Just some stupid rat with rabies that bit him because he came too close to it._

_Yeah. It was probably nothing._


	2. The Beginning of the End

_September 24, 1998_

_8:02 a.m._

More than anything else, he hated the screaming.

Jonathan Shepherd could deal with the smells. The entire lab reeked of the scent of chemical soaps, hand sanitizers, and other health-related products. The whole place had that new-hospital smell that he had never really enjoyed but could deal with by focusing on his work.

He could deal with the secrecy as well. He was married, to a well-kept and pretty woman, although this was not true of many of the other lab-rats. Generally, Umbrella workers were encouraged not to form attachments, and many went without a wife and children. People with said attachments were monitored much more closely, considered to be dangerous links within the corporation. Although he was checked up on much more than the other employees, Jon had no problem with the stringent security measures and the double-life he was forced to lead. To his wife, he was simply employed by a massive pharmaceutical corporation and did nothing but work on health-care products. As far as he was concerned, the less Sammy knew about his true line of work, the better.

What tore him up inside, however, what caused him to lie awake at night, his mind tormented and questioning the very core of his being, was the screaming. Every time he walked into one of the testing chambers and had to watch the patients being administered with a different drug, he began to hate himself. He had been an unusually sensitive kid, which was somewhat surprising considering the line of work he was now involved in. Jon had tried forcing himself to outgrow his unconditional sympathetic feelings for Umbrella's patients, but it never worked. He still flinched, shifted, grew hot and bothered and melancholy, every time he had to stand there, clipboard in hand, taking note of what particular time the virus was injected, how long it took the symptoms to manifest themselves, and exactly what the symptoms were. Jon wasn't the only employee to suffer from what he considered to be his affliction, however; several of the Umbrella scientists were on the same page. They were never given much thought, though, and were mainly shunted back and forth from their workstations to the company psychiatrist, Dr. Weber, for antidepressants and quick-fix, thank you for coming, get back to work therapy.

None of it worked. For Jon, at least. He had woken from many a nightmare filled with agonized shrieks of _please, no, dear God, no, why, help me, stop – _

"Shepherd!"

Jon's thoughts were silenced by the voice of his coworker and fellow scientist Davis Hoffman. The bespectacled man was staring at him curiously, a clipboard tucked securely under his left arm and a blue pen poised above a blank page to take notes. Davis had a very reassuring and soothing voice, one that made him very good at calming people down in times of crisis. He was generally the man to relax the patients if their drugs wore off or if they suffered from an unexpected adrenaline or panic rush.

Davis motioned to the glass screen in front of them, through which they were busy watching three middle-aged subjects, two men and one woman, strapped to metal operating tables. Thick, ropy restraints securely fastened their arms and legs in place to prevent them from injuring each other once the effects of the virus kicked in. At the moment, however, all three of the patients were sedated, each having been given a dose of tranquilizer to minimize anxiety before the injection.

"You faded off there for a second," Davis said, still peering at him. "You feeling okay?"

"Like a million bucks," Jon said grimly. The patient on the far left table, a balding man in his mid-thirties who appeared to disheveled and dirty, shifted slightly and groaned. Jon sighed. He would have to initiate the drug now or else the results could be impaired. It was important that the drug in question enter a dormant system.

"Patient One," Jon began, and Davis began writing at once, his hand a blur across the clipboard. "Male subject, age 36, homeless. Found sleeping behind the dumpster in the alley across from Casey's Hardware. Blood type: AB positive. Height: 5'10. Condition: stable."

Jon continued in this vein, describing each of the three subjects as Davis wrote down their statistics and conditions prior to injection. When he had finished documenting the third patient, Davis rolled up his sleeves and looked at Jon. "Shall we?" Jon sighed. "I suppose so."

Davis waited while Jon prepared the injections. After he had the needle with the drug clutched in his white-gloved hand, Jon exited the room he was in and strolled towards the adjoined lab. Punching the access code into the keypad, Jon entered the room, immediately feeling the cool chill of the air conditioners. Walking up to the first patient, Jon took notice of a large gash over the man's right eye. Blood was caked around his eyelid and he was groaning softly. The tranquilizer was wearing off.

"Injection of Viprafil AZ-149 administered to Patient One at 2214 hours."

God, he hated this part. Jon tried to ignore the patient as his back suddenly arched into the air, cracking sinisterly. The man's limbs began to tremble and shake, and his eyes flew wide open, unseeing and frantic.

_God damn it._

The man let out a terrified cry as the drug entered his system. Jon watched as he jerked repeatedly in his restraints, saliva frothing on his lips as he screamed. Jon was vaguely aware of Davis administering the other injections, and soon the sound of more agonized screams penetrated the air. He tried to block the noise out by focusing on small smudge of dirt on the sole of his shoe, but it didn't take. It was dirt. There wasn't anything remotely fascinating about dirt.

Davis noticed his distressed look. "You might want to go and see Dr. Weber about this again," he said, somewhat tiredly. It wouldn't have been the first time. Jon nodded, documenting the patients' conditions as quickly as possible, and hurried out of the lab towards the psychiatric ward as quickly as he could. It didn't make a difference, though; the screams still echoed in his head long after they had faded into the distance.

xxxx

_September 24, 1998_

_8:16 a.m._

Near the edge of the heart of Raccoon City, a house of no particular importance echoed with the quiet noise of a family starting their day. This house was in an area of the city that was neither near the city centre or on the city outskirts; instead it was situated in the border separating these two areas. Within the house, sleeping deeply (although not for long), there was a teenage boy who, until today, went unnoticed by history. However, the alarm clock beeping insistently on his bedside dresser was slowly bringing the boy closer and closer to an event that would change his life forever. At the moment however he was completely oblivious, still sleeping soundly.

"Jordan!"

A faint female voice reached his ears just as the alarm clock changed pitch abruptly and began to beep more loudly. The boy muttered something indistinctly and rolled over. His hand shot out and began groping around the dresser. On his third attempt, he managed to find the clock, but he only succeeded in knocking it off the dresser, where it clattered noisily on the floor and began to beep ever more shrilly. To add to the disruptive picture, a voice pierced him again, louder this time.

"Jordan! Hurry and get up, you'll be late for school!"

"Alright," Jordan muttered. "I'm getting up."

He rolled over and sat up, blinking in the bright sunlight that was visible through the closed blinds. As he rubbed his eyes, sleep was stripped from his gaze and his scowling mother wavered into focus before him.

"You overslept again," his mother admonished, sweeping past his bed and flinging the blinds open; Jordan winced as the bright light impacted his vision and bathed his room golden. "You'd better get downstairs before breakfast gets cold."

"What's for breakfast?"

"Corn flakes." They both laughed. His mother exited his room and soon he heard her footsteps receding down the stairs. Climbing out of bed, the boy called Jordan stripped out of his bed clothes and rummaged through his dresser, pulling out the first clothes he found, before shuffling into the bathroom. He washed himself quickly, glancing in the mirror briefly after toweling his face. A pair of dark brown eyes gazed back at him from his reflection, his face framed by a curtain of long black hair. A small white scar, shaped like a crescent, was barely visible over his right eye.

Looking away, Jordan slipped into a black pair of shorts and a blue t-shirt before bounding downstairs, where the rest of his family had already assembled. His father was seated at the kitchen table, hidden behind an unfurled newspaper with a mug of steaming coffee in front of him. His mother was washing plates in the sink, and his ten year-old sister Lily was seated at the table, hastily finishing her scrambled eggs and looking distractedly at the clock on the microwave display. The radio on the stove counter was currently finishing Frank Sinatra's "Fly me to the Moon."

"Anything good in there, Dad?" Jordan asked, giving his sister a hug before seating himself and shaking corn flakes into a bowl. His father lowered the paper, glancing at him through his spectacles before vanishing behind the paper again. "There's news, but I wouldn't call it good. Looks like those weird cannibal things attacked someone else in Redwood Park."

"Thomas!" Jordan's mother said sharply. "I don't want Lily listening to those terrible things. It's bad enough that so many incidents have popped up and people been attacked without her being exposed to that violence."

"I'm not a kid anymore, Mom," Lily said indignantly. "I can handle stuff like that; it's not a big deal. I wish you'd stop treating me like a child." The radio changed songs, and soon Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" had taken over.

"She's got a point, Alice," Jordan's dad piped up from behind the paper. "She's not our baby anymore. Besides, I want her – and you too, Jordan –" his stern face suddenly peered at him from behind the paper, "– to be extra careful and come home right after school. It's dangerous now, with all these weird attacks going on."

"Don't worry about Lily, Mom," Jordan said. "She's smart, she'll be fine." His sister smiled at him, her green eyes sparkling, as their parents engaged in an argument about the recent development and Lily's exposure to it. Jordan's attention began to waver. He picked up his father's forgotten paper and scanned the headline:_Authorities worried by further bizarre encounters in Redwood Park._ Older papers were scattered around the table as well, and as Jordan flipped through them, other headlines flashed out to meet him.

_Bizarre murders in Raccoon City_

_S.T.A.R.S. Suspended_

_Teenager attacked in Theatre District_

"…and it's so much better if we avoid that, don't you think, Jordan?"

Jordan, finishing his cereal, made a noncommittal noise in his throat and started tearing into a bran muffin as he read the articles. At the same moment, the song on the radio was cut off.

"_We interrupt the original broadcast to bring you this special news bulletin. Another attack occurred just hours earlier this morning near Ravens Gate Church. Victims were Cooper Flaherty and Joanna Wells, two members of the church who –"_

Jordan's mom turned the radio's volume down just as the back door opened, and Jordan's friend and neighbour Ben Avery walked into the kitchen. "Hey, man," Jordan said, looking up from the paper. "What's up?"

"Not much," Ben replied, leaning against the door. "How are you, Mr. and Mrs. Brooks?"

"Why, hello, Ben," Jordan's mom replied. "Would you like anything to eat?" Ben shook his head as Jordan finished his breakfast and stood up, gathering his knapsack from beside the chair. "No thanks, I just came by to get Jordan and to remind him we have baseball practice after school."

"Oh, yeah," Jordan said; he had completely forgotten. He hastily drank the last of his orange juice and stood up. "Well, anyways, I'm off, guys," he said, tousling his sister's hair; she giggled and ducked away from him. "See you later."

"Have a good day, boys," Mrs. Brooks called as they left the kitchen. "Right," Jordan replied, setting his cup on the table.

The radio broadcast was still playing.

xxxx

_September 24, 1998_

_1:52 p.m._

Sergeant Elliot Stone sighed as he looked out the back window of the heavily armoured SWAT van that was ferrying him to the New Industrial District of Raccoon City. His Heckler and Koch MP5 was clutched loosely in his hands, and his fingers drummed a restless beat on its magazine.

Elliot, regardless of his rank, was still apprehensive about the shady mission he had been assigned to. He would never show it, though. This was partly because it was expected of him, as the highest ranking officer on his team, not to lose face in front of his men. The other reason was that he generally had a difficult time showing emotion. Elliot had never married or had children, preferring the quiet, silent life he led alone when he wasn't on duty. He enjoyed the thrill and the excitement of his job to a certain extent, but didn't let on that much.

At the moment, however, he had a good reason to be skeptical about the mission. Lately there had been numerous reports of strange violent occurrences taking place sporadically throughout Raccoon City. The cases were bizarre cannibalistic homicides that mimicked the strange murders that had taken place several months prior in the Arklay Mountains. Elliot, watching several more buildings flash by, recalled the public statement made by Jill Valentine and a couple other members of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service. Something about discovering the shocking root behind the cannibal murders in the Arklay Mountains, and that it was all the fault of a series of viral experiments gone wrong at a secret Umbrella facility located deep in the heart of the Arklay Mountains. According to the S.T.A.R.S., the virus Umbrella was working on in the Arklay facility had leaked, and infected everyone there, leading to the infected committing the murders of random hikers, joggers, and picnickers than happened to cross their paths. Naturally, Elliot thought they were barking, seeing as how they had absolutely no evidence to back up their claims, as the entire area where the event was supposed to have taken place had been consumed by a forest fire. Naturally, the public scorned the delusional claims laid against Umbrella by the S.T.A.R.S., and ignored everything they said. Many were outraged that a once respected branch of the police force was trying to discredit the international corporation that employed more than 30 per cent of Raccoon City's citizens.

_Now, these weird murders are happening all over again…_

For it was true. Citizens were being attacked, bodies were being discovered, and all victims stated that their assailants staggered around like drunks, were covered in blood and tried taking bites out of them.

Elliot didn't know what to believe, but as far as he was concerned, the cannibalistic bullshit was just some half-wit scheme the S.T.A.R.S. had thought up because of overwork. Whatever weird things were attacking the people in town were distressing, but they didn't _frighten _him. As far as Elliot was concerned, a bullet in the right spot could solve any problem. He had never held much stock with the S.T.A.R.S. anyways; in his view they were overrated.

"We're passing the Old Industrial District now, sir," one of the newer recruits called to him. Elliot nodded briefly, his fingers once again restlessly tapping his gun. The next minutes passed in relative quiet, not counting the roar of cars from all around them and the sporadic screech of tires or the blare of a horn. In another five minutes, they had reached their destination. Elliot looked around the van at his soldiers. They were all looking back at him, the more seasoned vets stone-faced with their weapons steady in their hands. The younger and more inexperienced members looked unsure, and were glancing about uneasily. One in particular, a thin yet wiry kid who was no older than twenty-one, seemed more agitated than the rest. His hands were shaking slightly and he was fidgeting constantly.

"Listen up, men," Elliot said in his gravelly voice, and the SWAT members snapped to attention at once. "You know our orders. We got another call, some more citizens have been attacked near Area E-95070. We go in fast, we take the assailants in. We want them alive if possible; if they're hostile, put them down. You get me?"

"We get you, sir!"

The men spoke as one. Elliot nodded slowly. "Then move out." The doors were wrenched open and the SWAT team poured out, their dark blue and black uniforms illuminated brightly in the sun. The wiry kid was one of the last ones out of the van, and as he passed, Elliot put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. The kid turned to look at him. "You hesitate, people die," Elliot said evenly. The kid nodded slightly, eyes resolute but still troubled, and started to move off again, but Elliot stopped him once more. "What's your name, soldier?"

"Edward, sir."

"Step to it, Edward." The kid immediately ran to catch up with the team, which was quickly making their way through a dilapidated street next to a junkyard. Elliot ran to catch up.

"Damn it, man, why do you have to scare them so much?" Another officer, Elliot's closest friend Charlie, shook his head bemusedly as Elliot moved to the front of the group. The Sergeant shrugged. "I do what I have to."

"And scare the shit out of them in the process," Charlie smirked.

"If that's what it takes."

"Hard ass," Charlie shot, but said no more. Elliot gave a rare half grin. He had been close to the officer since he began his training, and although Charlie was a rank below him, the two had gone through training together and were quite close, albeit with a much rockier and eclectic relationship than most friends. Charlie was a practical joker, and Elliot a silent realist; it was as though they both balanced each other out.

"Oh, jeez, what the hell is that smell?" an officer muttered from behind Elliot. Elliot sniffed the air and immediately grimaced: the putrid scent of rotting garbage and decaying meat was pervading the air, growing stronger as they moved forward. Apart from that, it was quiet, too quiet. He could hear no sounds of commotion, which meant that the citizens being attacked had either escaped, or had been killed. The only noise was a very faint moaning sound, off in the distance. The Sergeant frowned. He didn't like the feel of this.

"What the hell did you eat for lunch, Sarge?" Charlie whispered, his M4 assault rifle clutched tightly in his black gloved hands. Elliot was too distracted to bother responding. The moaning was growing closer. With a flick of his right hand, he hoarsely uttered "positions," and the men around him quickly assembled into two lines, some facing forwards and some backwards. The officers at the edges of the lines surveyed what was going on next to them as well.

Elliot gave the surrounding area a cursory glance. The Old Industrial District had been subject to much construction, and was falling apart. Empty buildings lined both sides of the street, their doorways open and dark despite the bright sunlight. Numerous cars were parked on the streets, and each could potentially provide cover for the assailants.

_There's too much cover for them. And still no sign of the citizens. I don't like this…_

Then, out of the blue, a loud, blood-curdling shriek rent the air.

Every SWAT member jerked to face in the direction of the scream. It was so loud, so high-pitched, that Elliot could not tell if it was from a man or a woman. There was another second of complete silence, and then another scream sounded, this one louder than the first. Elliot took a step forward, when a body fell out of an open window of a building about thirty yards away.

Elliot gaped slightly at the bloody form, writhing on the ground and screaming horribly as he clutched his neck, from which blood was pouring profusely. The man rolled over in agony, and saw the SWAT team standing there. Groaning loudly, he reached out. "H-help me…"

Suddenly, another figure stumbled out of the building's doorway. Elliot trained his SMG on the figure, a fat construction worker with a thick slab of gut protruding from under a grease-stained shirt. What was disconcerting about the man, however, was the shocking quantity of blood, both dried and fresh, which caked his mouth and cheeks, and the horrible stains of the same colour that were splattered across his shirt. The bloody construction worker took another lurching step towards the injured man, and Elliot realized with a revolted jolt that one of the man's cheeks had been torn clean off, showing a glint of bone beneath it. His left eye was also mutilated beyond recognition, and was simply a pussy, bloody mess.

"Holy fucking _shit –_"

One of the officers let out a vehement exclamation just as the figure fell forwards and landed on the injured man. He screamed even louder and tried to push him away, but he had lost too much blood and his movements were weak and lethargic. As Elliot watched in horror, the construction worker reared back, moaning, and sank his teeth into the man's bloody throat.

The man let out a gurgled scream that was muffled by the blood pouring from his throat. His eyes bulged in his sockets, and his feet kicked frantically, twitching on the road. Blood pooled around him in a thick mass as the construction worker pulled back, and tore the man's throat open with his teeth.

Elliot finally came to his senses and fired, as the man beneath the construction worker jerked his arms and cried out through the blood around his mouth. The rest of the officers snapped out of their frightened trance and opened fire as well. The construction worker was peppered with bullets, sending a thick spray of blood into the air. He was thrown back, his body skewered and torn and barely recognizable from the gunshots. Elliot watched it, sick at heart, and then felt a surge of shock when the construction worker groaned and slowly began to push himself up again.

_No fucking way. I put almost a full clip into that thing. No fucking way it can get up after that._

But it did. Elliot snarled in anger and fired again, this time aiming straight for the thing's face. A well-placed bullet went straight between the construction worker's eyes, and it slumped to the ground, a spreading cloud of gore around it.

"Oh, God…"

Elliot registered the sound of vomit splattering on the pavement behind him, but he paid no attention to it. The victim of the construction worker had fallen still, blood still staining the pavement around him. Elliot sighed heavily as he looked at the corpse. If he had reacted faster, he might have been able to save the man's –

_What the fuck…?_

Elliot's heart began to pound in his chest as he witnessed what happened next. The body – the fucking _corpse_ of the bitten man – was moving on the ground, reaching out with its blood-stained hands, dragging its mangled body closer towards the SWAT team. The corpse let out a rasping cry, and Elliot's numb brain registered one thing in that morbid sound: hunger. Pure, unadulterated hunger.

"No fucking way!" one of the officers shrieked, losing his head. "He's dead! This is impossible! _How the fuck can it be moving when it's fucking d–"_

_Bang._

With a loud roar, Elliot's gun bucked in his arms, and another bullet slugged the corpse in the top of the head, causing it to burst like a melon and spew a cloud of brain and bone fragments all around it. Nausea rising in his stomach, Elliot turned away to watch the street ahead of him, feeling a jolt as he realized the faint moaning he had heard earlier had grown both louder and closer. The terrible stench that pervaded the air was also much stronger.

"Oh, shit," Charlie whispered, his face growing pale, and Elliot knew in that moment what the smell was: it was the smell of death, of a human body rotting. "I don't get it, what is it –" the wiry kid started, just as Elliot saw the first shadow in the distance.

The figures were a couple blocks away, staggering towards them with a lurching, unsteady gait that reminded Elliot of someone drunk. They appeared in the doorways of the vacated buildings, in alleyways – soon more than two dozen people were stumbling towards them.

"What the hell is wrong with them? Why are they walking like that? I don't –" An officer's voice died in his throat as the first group of people came close enough for their features to be visible. Elliot felt as though he had been punched in the gut. They were all covered in blood. Their clothes were stained with it, their hands and fingernails encrusted with it – the faces of the things were ashen and stained with crimson. Their moaning cries had grown louder and more insistent as they stumbled towards the group. Elliot's mind was churning madly as they moved closer, their clothes ripped and in bloody tatters, their arms outstretched as though to hug the officers now only a block away.

"Sir?" the wiry kid, Edward, said frantically, his gun trembling slightly in his hand. Elliot chanced a glance behind him, and his worst fears were confirmed – at least twenty more staggering people, moaning with hunger and blood lust. Elliot snapped to and raised his weapon.

"Kill them! Kill them all!" he roared, and next moment there was a sound like rolling thunder as it erupted all around him. Guns roared and shook as the things were peppered with bullets. Many staggered, and a few fell, but they just got right back up again.

"Why won't they die?" Charlie yelled, nearly separating a middle-aged woman in a miniskirt from her legs as his M4 punched a line of dark, bloody holes across her stomach. The things kept coming, relentless, almost like –

_Say it. Like zombies. Like the living dead._

"Bullshit," Elliot said aloud, although nobody heard him over the sound of gunfire, the harsh moaning, and the screams of the officers. Elliot whirled and fired into an old man's face, sending half his head flying in bloody chunks. _And stay down, bitch,_ Elliot thought, feeling a savage sense of triumph when the thing fell and did not rise.

"Aim for the head, shoot them in the head," Elliot roared over the noise, killing three more of the corpse-things with well placed bullets to the head, watching their faces blow open. His men tried to obey, but it was no good. Charlie was roaring unintelligibly, his M4 a bucking killing machine, but the things were too close. A horrible scream sounded as one of the creatures got too close to an officer beside him, sinking its bloody teeth into his left cheek. The man let out another horrible, agonized shriek as the creature tore his cheek away, sending a river of hot blood gushing down his throat. Behind him, similar cries broke out as the creatures grabbed the SWAT officers and tore chunks of flesh from them.

_Shit, this can't be happening, no –_

Something grabbed his left arm. Elliot whirled, and not a foot away from his face was the ghastly visage of one of the creatures. Large chunks of flesh were torn away from its arms, and one of its eyes was surrounded by a mass of torn flesh and was hanging from its optic nerve. Its gaping mouth opened and closed, bloody teeth flashing and sending its reeking breath into his face. Elliot stared into its remaining eye, and it stared back – there was nothing left in its gaze. No intelligence, no flicker of life. Just a terrible, absolute hunger.

Elliot raised his gun with his right arm and pulled the trigger, causing the right side of the thing's face to explode and send dark blood coursing down its face. He backed away, his concentration on the thing before him, just as a pair of ice cold hands seized him from behind.


	3. Outbreak

_September 24, 1998_

_3:15 p.m._

A young man in his mid-thirties sat uneasily across from his literary agent, unconsciously taking tissues from a box on the desk and twisting them into small shreds. The balding man across the mahogany desk had a sheaf of papers spread across the desk before him, covered with neat and tidy scrawl. The office shutters were wide open, and the noise from the busy street below was easily audible. Children laughed, cars honked and tires squealed, and a constant murmur of voices and car engines drifted up to the office. A curved lamp near the edge of the desk shone unneeded light upon the topmost paper on the pile, bearing the words _**Painted Red.**_

"Well, Harry? What do you think?"

The balding man looked up from the papers, his wide face pink with glee. "Shit, Caden, you've yarned yourself a good one here, man. Your personal best, in my opinion. This'll do nicely. Just from looking at this makes it kind of hard to believe you were experiencing difficulty."

Caden Ross nodded with a mixture of ruefulness and relief. Difficulty was putting it lightly; for the past year he had been plagued with a most obsessive case of writer's block. He had never had trouble writing before; his mind could spin tales out of nothing, throw in elements that made them unforgettable, and set them on the bestseller's list, no problem. But lately, ever since the separation, his mind had been blank, lacking the sustenance he needed for his career to survive. He wasn't close to being poor, far from it – but what with dealing with the lawyers, countless bills, and paying his agent and publishers for fruitless novels that hadn't worked out in his favour, Caden Ross was starting to feel the effects and was in the middle stages of anxiety.

_Looks like things are looking up now, though._

"If you were still hung up on the separation, what made you come up with this?" Harry Riddell asked, straightening the assembly of _**Painted Red**__'s _papers. Caden shrugged, straightening his tie. "It got a bit better after leaving New York. Spent some time out in the country, you know, at the summer cottage we have. Had, I mean… anyways, I managed to come up with enough bullshit to satisfy me, and then I came here to see whether or not it's doomed to failure."

"Fear not, it looks in good order," Harry said steadily. "Let's talk publishers. You've got to get out that rut Maxwell's Books has put you in. I put in some calls, on the probability you'd come up with something good. Luckily, I got some good replies, thanks to the last two you placed on the bestseller's list. Now, for details…"

xxxx

Half an hour later, Caden strolled joyously across Prospect Street, just outside his agent's office. The bounce in his step was well merited; from the looks of things, he might be back on track. _About time I hit a break_, he thought, dodging away from a red Pontiac that had sped up to catch the orange light. _Things are finally looking up. This calls for celebration._

He stopped at a crystal shop at the corner of Prospect and Gerrard, casting a cursory look over the small glittering sculptures on display. _What the hell, I'm not broke yet,_ Caden thought, smiling faintly, and he went through the door. Surely he could find something for her in here. He left some ten minutes later with a small crystal sculpture of a sparrow sitting on a small bowl in a little blue bag. The bowl was clear, glittering, faceted crystal, whereas the sparrow was slightly smokier with a grey haze. Two tiny blue crystals winked out of its eyes. Rachel loved animals, especially birds. Maybe this one would help mend the ridge that had formulated between them.

His wallet considerably lighter, Caden crossed the busy intersection and sat down on a bench at Victory Park, only blocks away from his agent's office. Stretching out, Caden lazily surveyed the green field and gently swaying trees, which cast dappled patterns of sunlight across his face as the wind rustled the branches. In the middle of the field, a group of teenage boys were spread out, running to and fro to catch a baseball another boy was batting out into the field. Caden watched them for a while, following the ball as it was caught, hit out again, caught, hit out again, before turning away. A young woman with a stroller walked past him, her baby gurgling happily in the bright weather. Young children of about five screamed and played on the jungle gym at the other end of the park.

_Great day,_ he thought idly. _I'll call Rach once I get back to the hotel. Maybe we can sit down, work something out. Hopefully get better._

With that cheery thought, Caden relaxed, watching the activity before him as his cares drifted away. Everything was good.

Several minutes later, Caden Ross's life changed forever.

xxxx

_September 24, 1998_

_4:02 p.m._

"This one's going long," Jordan called out, hefting the aluminum bat in his arms. With one arm he tossed the ball high, following through with a sharp swing of the bat. With a loud crack, the ball went sailing out into the blue sky, and his four friends scrambled across the field to catch it.

Jordan wiped his brow with one arm, squinting in the bright sunlight. It was a Friday, and he and his friends had got out of school early. Baseball practice had been cancelled, so he and his friends decided to mess around the park instead. Jordan felt slightly guilty at not heeding his father's instruction and going straight home, but if it were a regular day, he would still be at practice. Hence he assured himself he was doing nothing wrong, and would leave when practice would normally end.

Jordan looked over towards the end of the field, where a group of high school girls were reclining under a large willow tree. Three of them were sitting up against its trunk, and another two were lying down beside it. Their voices drifted over, occasionally accompanied by bursts of laughter. One of them, a redheaded girl in a faded yellow tank top and short shorts, was casting quick glances over to where he and his friends were. Jordan grinned slightly, hefting the bat and slamming the ball out again.

After a couple more turns at the bat (during which time Michael got hit on the head with a pop fly and swore so loudly that a group of mothers at the playground looked over at them, scandalized), Jordan was sweating and about ready to call it a day. Jogging over to where his knapsack lay on a grassy hill, he unzipped it and took out a water bottle before taking a long draught. His friends Ben, Nathan and Todd sprawled out next to him.

"I'm going to get something to drink," Michael said, starting off in the direction of the high school girls. Jordan smirked. "If you want to get rejected, you don't have to hide it from us," he replied. Michael gave him the finger, grinning. "Well, there's five of them. That means two for me and one for you, Ben, and Nathan. Todd, we'll see if they have any brothers or nice computer geek boyfriends for you."

Todd's loud curses followed Michael as he jogged off towards the girls, and a convenience store down the street past them. Jordan laughed and lay back on the grass, looking up at the light blue sky, until several minutes later Michael returned and dropped a grouping of Cokes onto the grass.

Jordan was about to ask how it went with the girls, but Michael looked a bit distracted. "Did you hear about the latest cannibal attack?" he asked, a frown creasing his face. Jordan sat up on his elbows, a long blade of grass fluttering between his teeth. "The one in Redwood Park?" he replied. Michael shook his head. "No, it just happened today. Heard it on the radio when I was buying the Cokes from that convenience store. An entire SWAT team vanished after being assigned to look into another group of attacks in the Old Industrial District."

"What?" Ben said, frowning. "No shot. An entire SWAT team? Things may be getting a bit fucked up, but I doubt it's so serious that the attackers can just waste a whole SWAT team."

"Well, the police chief was making a statement about how contact had been lost ever since early afternoon," Michael replied stoically. "Said they were supposed to check in and that their assignment shouldn't have taken this long."

"Brian Irons is an idiot," Nathan said, shrugging. "He probably disconnected the phone they were supposed to call in on. Every decision that nut has made since the S.T.A.R.S. affair has been complete idiocy."

Jordan privately agreed. If he didn't know better, he would swear that Irons was either losing his mind or crooked. Having kept up with the papers avidly ever since the whole mansion incident, Irons had made many choices that seemed to not be working out for the best of the city. Regardless, even _he_ couldn't be thick enough to just lose a group of officers. What if…?

"Forget it," Todd said dismissively, leaning back and prying open a can of Coke. "Everything will resolve itself sooner or later; we don't need to be worrying about this. Nothing bad is going to happen."

Famous last words.

Suddenly a loud scream burst out near the playground. Jordan looked up, heart pounding wildly. All around he could see heads turning to look for the source of the commotion. Eventually, he found it – a little girl was screaming and crying, tugging on the sleeve of a man who was thrashing and convulsing on the ground. Feeling a stab of apprehension and confusion, Jordan leaped to his feet and took off towards the man on the ground.

A chorus of confused and panicked voices sounded all around as Jordan tried to push through the throng. "What's going on?"

"What happened to him?"

"Is she okay?"

"Did anyone call the police?"

Eventually, Jordan came to the side of the man, who was groaning and kicking, arms and legs jerking uncontrollably. Jordan felt a shock upon seeing his skin – it was ashen gray, with a large portion near his left elbow a mottled, greenish purple.

"What happened to him?" Jordan asked the little girl, who was no older than six. She continued sobbing, thick, pearly tears strangely magnified by her glasses. "He's my daddy. He had been looking sick ever since yesterday, and now he just fell down! Help him! Help him, _please_!" she seized Jordan's arm in a painfully tight grip, and he bit his lip to guard against the pain.

"Ben!" he yelled over his shoulder, where his friends were standing by his shoulder. "Use your cell and call 911! Hurry up, he needs an ambulance!" Ben nodded, his face white, and he quickly yanked his cell phone out and dialed. Jordan turned back to the man, when suddenly, another strangled cry burst out not far away.

On the street at one end of the park, two figures were grappling with each other. One was weaving and stumbling like a drunk, and the other seemed terrified beyond imagination. As Jordan watched, his heart beating painfully fast, the figures collapsed in the dirt, the stumbling, unsteady one on top. A split second later a horrible scream rang out.

"What the hell?" someone close to Jordan whispered. He looked up, distracted, to see a man in his mid-thirties with thinning dark hair, stubbly cheeks, and a blue bag marked with the white words _**Treasure Trove**_ clutched in his right hand gaping slightly at the spectacle before him through his glasses. Jordan turned back to the man on the ground, suddenly realizing that he had been still for more than a minute.

_Oh, shit._

"Ben, hurry the fuck up with the police!" Jordan yelled, his heartbeat rapidly increasing when he saw that the man had fallen still. His eyes were shut, and he wasn't breathing. He was pale, too, as white and pallid as old porridge. The girl at his side sobbed and cried with a loud intensity that made his ears ache. Jordan reached out to try to quiet her, when suddenly a hand shot up and seized his arm.

Jordan looked dumbly at the pale, white hand clutching his forearm with a deathly strong grip. The hand belonged to the man who had, just moments before, been still as death. Now, however, the man's eyes were open, but they seemed blank somehow, as glassy and vacant as cold white marbles. The dead man let out a soft moan, reaching up with his other hand and grabbing Jordan's shoulder before wrenching him towards his mouth. Jordan yelled in alarm and twisted back with all his strength, freeing himself from the man's icy grasp. To his horror, however, the crying little girl rushed forward, burying her face in her father's neck.

"_Get her away from him!"_ Jordan yelled, as the man suddenly bared his teeth and lunged at her throat. A middle-aged woman in a long skirt grabbed the child and pulled her away, and the man's teeth fastened upon her right arm instead.

The woman let out a painful, terrified scream as the man bit down, tearing into her skin, shaking his head back and forth. Blood spurted everywhere; the woman screamed in agony as the man reared away, ripping a chunk of skin away from her arm and sending a jet of blood into the air.

Somewhere – to Jordan it sounded close to the corner of Prospect and Albany – something exploded.

The man on the ground moaned loudly, setting off a cacophony of shrieks and terrified screams as the people surrounding him panicked. There was a confusing rush of moving bodies, a continuous scream from the bleeding, injured woman, and sobbing. More blood flew as the man seized someone's leg as they ran past. Jordan couldn't see whose blood it was.

Stumbling away from the man, Jordan backed up, colliding with Todd and not even noticing. The man on the ground had crawled over to the bleeding woman, grabbed her, and had fastened his teeth around her throat. The woman let out a choked scream as the man tore her carotid artery out; suddenly a huge gush of blood spurted onto the already red grass. Jordan had never seen so much blood in his life.

"Holy shit!" Nathan cried, as the woman slowly grew still, lying in a puddle of spreading crimson. Jordan stared, his eyes seeing but not accepting, as the man gorged himself on her torn throat, drank from it, dug into it with his teeth, until the woman's neck was a torn, bloody mess. The woman was no longer moving. The man then pushed himself to his feet again and started stumbling towards them, his mouth and face covered with blood, his eyes blank and empty. A low moan emanated from his throat.

Another explosion, this one closer. In his peripheral vision, Jordan saw a plume of black smoke curling upward toward the sky. All around him there was screaming, people running, and crying. Blood soaked the ground. The man weaved drunkenly towards him and his friends, mouth gaping and blood dripping from his yellowed teeth.

"Stay the fuck back!" Michael yelled, but the man before them didn't react in the slightest to his yell, merely gave another guttural moan and continued shambling towards them. Jordan's shell-shocked brain registered one thing: the man had tried to kill his own daughter, and had torn a woman's throat open with his teeth.

_He's mad,_ Jordan thought. _He's completely insane._

He took a step back, and his foot nudged against something hard and cylindrical. Sparing a quick glance down, Jordan saw the aluminum bat, which he had carried over to the scene before he dropped it and left it lying forgotten at the edge of the group. As the man reached out and his clammy fingers wrapped around Michael's throat, Jordan reached down and seized the blood stained handle of the bat. Trying not to think, Jordan raised the bat above his head and brought it down with all the force he could muster, aiming straight at the top of the man's skull.

The bat connected with the man's head with a squishy, pulping noise, and the top of the man's head caved inwards. His fingers loosened around Michael's neck, and the man fell forwards, collapsing in the scarlet grass at Michael's feet, who was wide-eyed and unmoving, still in shock at how close he had come to death.

Jordan took one look at the mess of gore that used to be a human head and threw up. He leaned over, vomit searing his lips and his throat as he doubled up in pain and fear and doubt, as the street around him, literally, went to hell.

xxxx

_I can't believe this is happening._

The numb thought echoed repeatedly through Caden's head, shutting out all reason and logic. He had seen the thrashing man die. Then he had seen the man get back up, try to take a bite out of his own daughter, and then effectively slaughter the woman now lying on the ground at his feet.

A shriek of car tires and the blare of a horn shook him out of his reverie. Craning his neck, Caden looked around and saw a grey van swerve dangerously in the street, plowing straight into several pedestrians before slamming into the glass windowed wall of a nearby café. Loud screams and the shriek of torn metal and breaking glass sounded in the din. Caden barely had time to flinch before an ice cream truck thundered down the street, speeding through an intersection and colliding directly into the side of a grey-blue Toyota. The Toyota flipped over, sending a shower of sparks into the air as the two vehicles swerved into a streetlamp. Next instant, a loud roar obliterated all noise for a brief instant as the two vehicles vanished in a huge cloud of red fire.

Caden shielded his eyes from the glare, feeling the heat blast out at him from the wreckage. Dark clouds of smoke and steam issued from the mangled debris that had been the Toyota's hood, and the ice cream truck's front was completely smashed in. Beside him, someone whispered, "holy _shit._"

Caden glanced sideways and saw a young teenager in ripped blue denim jeans and a red football jersey staring open mouthed at the flaming mess. Next to him were four other kids that looked to be in high school. One of them was doubled over, hands on his knees, next to the corpse of a man whose head was –

– _holy shit, what did he _do _to him?_ –

The third kid was wearing a black and grey t-shirt, his hands twisting frantically as he watched the carnage. Another was wearing long sleeved t-shirt with a brown vest over top, and was staring at the corpse in front of him warily. The last kid was standing as though petrified, eyes wide and staring into the distance as he stood numbly. A brilliant streak of red was dripping down his white football jersey.

"Are you all –" Caden started, when he suddenly heard a low hiss at his feet. Looking down, he saw the woman whose throat had been savaged stirring fitfully on the ground, crawling towards the doubled over kid who had just vomited. Her hands were outstretched, fingers hooked into claws that dug into the air, trying to find something to grab. The woman moaned again and crawled faster.

Not knowing what else to do, but hating himself for it all the same, Caden stepped forward and brought his foot down as hard as he could atop the woman's head. He felt something squish beneath his foot, and a wave of bile coursed through his stomach. Biting down his nausea, Caden raised his foot and brought it down again, once, twice, three times, until the woman's head was no more than a bloody pile of bone fragments and brain.

"Fuck," Caden muttered, clapping a hand to his throat as he smell of the dead woman's head came wafting up to him. His stomach twisted, and he lost it, spraying vomit all over the grass. After his queasiness subsided, he wiped his mouth with a trembling hand, straightening up again.

"Oh, God," Red Football Jersey Kid said, eyes wide. "You killed her."

"I had to," Caden said. His voice sounded alien. It felt difficult just speaking. "She would have killed him." He looked again at the kid who had killed the already-dead-man with the baseball bat. "Are you okay?"

For a second, there was no response. Then: "yeah." The kid straightened up, and there was a curious blankness in his face. "I'm fine."

"Pick up the bat," Caden advised. "Somehow I think it'll come in handy." The kid looked down and stared at the aluminum bat, one end still dripping red, as though seeing it for the first time. Then, as though snapping out of his stupor, he leaned over and picked the bat up again.

"Good," Caden said. "Look, you can't fall apart right now. Not if we want to live through this fiasco, anyways. What's your name?"

"Jordan," the kid muttered. "Alright, Jordan. Your friend over there seems to be a bit out of it. Wake him up."

"Oh, shit, Michael, you okay?" the kid in the blue/grey t-shirt asked, shaking him by the shoulders. The kid with the bloodstained jersey blinked heavily several times, shaking his head. "Yeah… yeah, never better, Todd."

Caden looked over to the street again. The left end of the park was full of people, who were stumbling about in their drunken, murderous stage. He could still hear screams in the distance, echoing through the streets. People ran here and there in a panic, disappearing as fast as they appeared.

"Ben, did you manage to reach the police?" Jordan asked, wiping the bat on the grass to clean it. The attempt seemed fruitless to Caden, as the grass was bloodier than the bat. However, he was glad that the kid had snapped out of his daze and was adapting to the situation.

"No," Red Football Jersey Kid replied. "It said all the lines were busy. I guess when the shit hit the fan, it happened all across Raccoon City." Caden felt a twinge of despair. If he couldn't even reach the police, then he was all alone in this mess, with no hope of rescue or help. Just him and the kids.

A loud moan from the street drew his attention for a split second. A young man, looking to be in his early twenties, had seized a running pedestrian and bit into her face. The woman screamed and fought, but the man held on tightly with his only remaining arm, for the other was cut off at the shoulder, leaving only a twisted mess of gore where it had been. The two fell struggling to the pavement, the man biting and slurping and tearing into the poor woman, whose screams were fading rapidly.

"Shit, we have to _do_ something!" the kid in the long sleeved t-shirt and vest said fiercely, taking a step forward. Jordan stopped him. "There's nothing we can do, Nathan," he whispered, his face pale. "It's too late for her."

As if to emphasize his point, the woman stopped struggling and the man feasting on her staggered to his feet and lurched away. A few moments later, the woman miraculously pushed herself up, oblivious to the torn skin dripping from her right cheek and her missing eye, before stumbling after him.

"That's not possible," Ben muttered. "She was dead. He killed her. And she got right back up again. Just like with this one –" he nudged the nearly headless carcass of the woman at his feet – "she was killed by that crazy guy. How could she have come back to life?"

"I have no idea," Jordan whispered faintly. He then looked Caden straight in the face. "What the hell is going on?"

"I have no idea," Caden said quietly, wincing as another faint scream sounded in the distance. "All I know is staying out here is too dangerous. We've got to get somewhere and lay low until we can find a police officer, or until we hear news about whatever is happening to Raccoon."

The high school kids nodded in unison. "So somewhere with a TV, then," Michael said. Caden nodded. Then it dawned on him. "The Summerfield Hotel! That's where I'm staying. There's a TV in my room, and I've got a key."

"You don't live here?" Todd asked him. Caden shook his head. "No." He didn't elaborate further. Looking down, he saw with slight surprise that he had been holding onto the _**Treasure Trove **_bag with his crystal sparrow this whole time. He didn't remember having it in his hand.

"Alright, so we hit the Summerfield Hotel until we hear news from the cops," Nathan said. Caden nodded.

"Wait," Jordan said. "My family. I can't – _won't_ leave them. I've got to go home, I have to find my parents and my sister. I need to make sure they're safe."

"Me too," Michael said. Ben nodded. "And me." Nathan frowned. "My mom's away on business and my dad lives in New Hampshire. Thank _God_ they're not here to see this."

Todd drew a deep breath. "Both my parents are away until October 5th; they're on one of Umbrella's promotional tours."

Caden sighed. "That's something, at least. Okay, fine, we'll see to your families, but it has to be later rather than sooner. We need to bunker down for now, wait until we hear something or –"

Another loud explosion, coupled with the shattering of glass and a loud scream. Caden winced. "We've got to go. _Now._"

Luckily, the teenagers raised no more objections. Looking at them, Caden saw the same doubt, the same uncertainty, the same fear mirrored in their eyes. But he also saw something else, something that gave him slight hope.

Courage.

"Let's go," he said softly, and together they moved away, down the streets that had been safe and happy and full of life only moments before, but now devoid of all.

And so they left, through the bright sunlight, into the heart of the city of the dead.

xxxx

_September 24, 1998_

_5:13 p.m._

Elliot leaned against the back wall of the convenience store they had come across, the wails of the undead creatures far enough in the distance for him to consider relaxing in the slightest. The street outside the store was relatively empty, with the exception of a couple staggering zombies, a few wrecked cars and an abundance of trash.

Jeremy let out a groan behind him, his hands clutching at his ankle. A bright pool of blood surrounded the wound, seeping through his fingers. Elliot had lost track of his men during the firefight, and had heard the sick crunch of teeth breaking just behind him. Elliot had turned to see one of his officers, Jeremy, smash the face of a zombie that had sank its teeth right into his ankle, tearing out a strip of flesh and chewing it. Elliot had fired relentlessly, the sharp smell of gunpowder mixing with the smell of blood and death, until the zombies around Jeremy fell and he could pull the wounded soldier to his feet. Elliot had managed to pull Jeremy along with strength he didn't even know he had, and they had managed to escape the scene of carnage. Edward, the youngest officer, had also managed to survive the onslaught of bloodthirsty creatures. Elliot had brought the officer with him, and the three had finally found their way to the New Industrial District, which was strangely ripe with a wave of destruction that had certainly not been present mere hours ago, when he had arrived.

As far as Elliot knew, Edward, Jeremy, and himself were the sole survivors of his team. He had seen no others escape from the bloodshed. Elliot closed his eyes, trying not to think about the horrible sounds his teammates had made as they died, but he couldn't. He kept hearing Swanson's scream as the zombies piled onto him in a seething mass, muffling his cries. He kept seeing Rogers crouching on the floor, giggling crazily, just before he threw his weapon away and let himself be taken. He kept seeing the bright flash from Charlie's gun appear fewer and fewer times, until it finally disappeared altogether. He kept –

"Aw, Jesus, it hurts," Jeremy whispered, clutching at his wounded ankle. "We've got to get out of here. Find help." His eyes were dazed and filmed over with pain, and his voice sounded hazy.

"You're going to be fine," Elliot replied automatically, not wanting to panic the wounded man, or Edward for that matter. "We'll just rest for another minute, and then we'll go."

Jeremy closed his eyes, panting slightly. Elliot cast a worried glance at his ankle, where the curved circle of teeth marks stood out against the dark blood and the ashen bluish green colour of the surrounding skin. _Why won't it stop bleeding?_ He wondered. Leaning down, Elliot tore a strip off of Jeremy's shirt and tied it into a makeshift bandage. "Keep pressure on that," Elliot ordered, and Jeremy, gritting his teeth, did so. Slight tremors wracked his body as he clutched the steadily turning red fabric against his ankle. Edward, meanwhile, reloaded his M4 with his second last clip, ejecting the empty one, trying to fight off the deep sense of fear and unease he felt.

"So now what?" Edward asked, placing his M4 on the floor and taking a chocolate bar from the display shelf. "How do we get back to the RPD?"

All of them knew that they were never going to make it out of the city, not on foot at least. However, if they could just get reinforcements or make it to a safe location, they could regroup with other officers and either wait for military intervention or make a bid for safety outside Raccoon City.

_Radio,_ Elliot thought, but felt a sinking feeling well up inside him as he realized he had lost his in the chaotic gunfight with the undead, and there was no way in hell that he was going back to the place where they had been attacked.

Then he got it. "There's a newspaper press office at Garrison and Hillside Avenue," Elliot said. "There's bound to be some radio equipment over there. We'll get in touch with the RPD, or anybody else out there who's listening."

"When do we leave?" Edward asked, tearing the wrapper off one candy bar and stuffing half of it into his mouth, while placing others in his ammo pack. Elliot tapped his fingers on his MP5, thinking. "I don't think we should leave it any later. It's going to get dark soon, and I don't entirely fancy the idea of wandering around in the dead of night with those things out there." Edward flinched slightly upon the word 'dead.'

"Itches," Jeremy mumbled, so quietly Elliot barely heard him. "It itches, bad. I don't feel good."

"Just hang in there, Jeremy," Elliot said, gripping his shoulder tightly. "We're going to get you some help. Don't you give up on us."

Jeremy nodded weakly, a thin trickle of saliva at the edge of his lips. He wiped it away with a shaking hand. Edward shot him a concerned look, before hoisting his M4 into his arms securely and pulling Jeremy up, wrapping the man's arm over his shoulders. "Okay, sir. Whenever you're ready."

Elliot took a deep breath, steeling himself. "Then let's move it." The three survivors of the decimated SWAT team slowly filtered out of the empty convenience store, out into the mainly deserted streets, with one powerful impulse coursing through them.

The will to survive.

xxxx

_September 24, 1998_

_6:06 p.m._

"Lee Kryzowzki, Sean Rogers, and Jonathan Shepherd, please report to Delta Lab Sector Four."

The automated mechanical voice droned throughout the speaker system. Jon looked up from his desk, a tired frown creasing his face. He should have been off work an hour ago, but Administration had forced him to stay overtime, documenting yet another variable in the T-series. It was bad enough that they had been dragging him in earlier and earlier each week, forcing him from the comfort of his bed and his wife until he barely saw anything of her. He had to be in the lab by 7:30, and arrived home around 6:00. He was exhausted. Every scientist working on the T-Series had been called in to put in more hours. If he didn't get a break soon, he was going to crack under the strain.

Sighing heavily, Jon got to his feet and made his way out of his office, heading down the pristine white hallway towards the Delta Complex. The Delta Complex was the most advanced research laboratory in the entire Raccoon City Corporate Headquarters building. It was broken up into four sectors. Sector Four contained the T-series division focusing on human experimentation and other biological testing.

Jon hurried into the elevator, pressing his thumb into a fingerprint scanner next to the buttons. A red imprint of his thumbprint was scanned by a green laser. When the access light turned green, Jon pressed the D4 button on the elevator. As the doors were closing, Sean rushed up, beckoning for him to hold the doors. Jon complied.

"Thanks," Sean said hurriedly, running a hand through his dirty blonde hair. "Administration's got me running overtime on the P-Base. I can honestly tell you, I'm not gonna be sorry to see the back of the whole T-Series project."

Jon wholeheartedly agreed.

The elevator doors slid open minutes later, and Jon walked beside Sean through the green tiled hallway of the Delta Complex. The red and white umbrella logo on the wall stared down at him as he passed.

Spotting the entrance to the Delta Lab Sector Four Administration office, Jon went inside. A group of scientists had already assembled. The second Sean passed through the door, an Umbrella security guard shut it behind him. The man in charge of the Delta Complex, Charles Olsen, sat behind his desk, his long, pale fingers woven together.

"Thank you for coming," he began in an oily voice. "This is a matter of the utmost importance and the highest priority. We received intelligence yesterday that the strike team we sent in to retrieve William Birkin's G-Virus has disappeared."

A tense ripple passed through the assembled scientists, but then knew better than to interrupt. Silently, they waited for Olsen to continue.

"We have lost contact with the team. Agent HUNK, who is leading the Umbrella Special Forces Team, has not radioed in with information on his team's assignment. We were not sure of what occurred in that underground laboratory, due to the fact that our surveillance in that facility is no longer operative. However, we have confirmed what has happened. There has been a T-Virus leak in Raccoon City."

Jon's mouth opened. He forgot about being professional and stepped forward.

"How long?" he asked urgently. Olsen stared at him, eyes flashing in annoyance at the nerve of his interruption. Jon tried not to let his anxiety show and waited. Eventually, Olsen turned away from him.

"Earliest symptoms register sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on September 22."

"What's the status of the infection?" Jon asked directly. His heart thudded painfully in his chest. _Samantha._

"Infection is classified as Code Red," Olsen said, and this time the ripple became a wave, and the scientists began an outbreak of muttering and whispers. Olsen raised his hand, and the tumult slowly faded.

"You are the top scientists the Umbrella Corporation has. You have been given high priority evacuation. As we speak, Umbrella Security Personnel are on their way to your place of residence. Do not panic, your families will be transported out of the city immediately to the camp we have established just miles away from the Arklay Mountains. Meanwhile, three choppers have been prepared to airlift you out of the hot zone."

Jon's mind was whirling frantically, barely registering anything Olsen was saying. _Samantha. It's my fault. God, please be safe._

"The choppers are not scheduled to depart for a while, perhaps not even for a full day. This," Olsen raised his voice slightly, for the group of scientists had suddenly burst into outraged whispers, "is due to the fact that all of our research data must be documented, saved, and transported immediately to Umbrella HQ in Europe. Do not fear, however, the facility is completely safe, and you may contact your families as soon as they reach the camp."

_Fuck that shit. I'm going to find my wife._

"You may return to your offices," Olsen concluded. "You will be contacted with further details." Jon opened his mouth to argue, but Olsen stared him down. "Now."

Grinding his teeth, Jon exited the office with the rest of the scientists, who burst into furious speech as soon as they were out of earshot of the Administration office.

"This is madness!"

"We've got to find some way to contact them."

"Screw the data, if it's a Code Red we need evac right away!"

"Fuckin' unbe_lievable_ –"

Jon ignored the talk and hurriedly rushed for the elevators. Screw Umbrella and their data retrieval, he was going home. He just hoped he would get there before the extraction group did.

It only took him about five minutes to get to his office, but the time seemed to crawl by. When he reached the office doors, Jon hurriedly swept through, gathering his most important notes and memos into a pile and sweeping them into his bag. It was all grouped together, heaped messily in one pile. He wasn't hired for his organizational skills. He then grabbed a flashlight, spare batteries, ID card, his cell phone, and a standard issue Umbrella security pistol that he had been able to wrangle out of the higher-ups after a particularly successful research breakthrough.

With everything he needed, Jon turned the light switch off and walked quickly out the door and down the hall. Halfway to the exit, he remembered and turned back, dashing into his office once more. He leaned over his desk, shifting through his assembled notes, patient analyses, research data, and the like. He found what he was looking for several minutes later and slipped it into his pocket.

Just in case.

**A/N: So what do you think? Please read and review, constructive reviews keep me going and updating. Thanks!**


	4. The Girl at the Door

_September 24, 1998_

_7:42 p.m._

Jordan felt numb all over as they walked through the chaotic streets of Raccoon City. On almost every block they had come to, citizens were screaming, running to and fro in a state of utter pandemonium. Evidence of further psychotic attacks was visible on almost every corner. Dead bodies lay sprawled in the streets, their lifeless eyes staring blankly at the darkening sky above. Strips of torn flesh decorated the bloody asphalt around their gnawed corpses.

Jordan felt distant, removed, almost as though he was separated from his body and watching himself walk down the bloodstained sidewalk on Torson Avenue. A single thought was continually whirling around his head, bouncing and rebounding off the corners of his mind

_I killed someone I killed someone I killed someone I killed_

All around him, Raccoon City was banging and starting with constant noises. Car alarms pierced the dusk air, almost immediately followed by the loud roar of explosions and scraping metal. Screams echoed between the buildings rimming the road, a constant backdrop to the macabre scene. Sporadic bursts of gunfire also peppered the air, sounding much like firecrackers set off on New Year's Eve or the Fourth of July.

_Except it's a pretty fucked up version of the Fourth of July over here,_ Jordan thought. _I may never set off another firecracker ever again. The man I killed – he never will either. Same way he'll never laugh again, never eat again, never hold his daughter again –_

_Stop it._

He gritted his teeth.

"This is so fucked up," Michael whispered from next to him. He had shaken out of his trance after almost having his throat torn out by the raving lunatic in the park, but was still looking a bit frazzled. The others were holding up similarly. Todd was silent next to him, simply staring with wide eyes at the carnage and destruction that raged around them. Nathan looked sick as he surveyed the bloody corpses littering the roads. Ben was similarly quiet, his eyes darting about. The stranger with the _**Treasure Trove **_bag walked ahead of them, no doubt lost in his own train of thought. Jordan felt a strange tie between him and the man. Like himself, the man had taken a life.

The bat felt cold and heavy in his hand. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

xxxx

Caden was silent as he and his party trekked through the strangely deserted street. Every now and then, a tremendous explosion would rock the city, causing the ground to shake under his feet. He winced inwardly every time. Again he wondered what the hell had gone down in the city to cause such a huge and devastating effect. Maybe it was some sort of terrorist attack.

_And how does that explain what happened in the park? What terrorist _eats _people?_

His mouth tightened into a thin line. He forced the memory of the gaping jaws, the bloodstained face, and the deadened milky-white eyes out of his head. Until he reached the hotel, he refused to think about what had just happened. If he thought about it for too long, he would remember the woman whose life he had extinguished with a stomp of his shoes. The last trace of her could still be clinging to his soles.

_No, no, no._ He pushed the thought away savagely. _I won't think about it._

"I've been meaning to ask. You're Caden Ross, aren't you?"

Surprised, Caden looked to his left side, where the high school kid named Jordan had stepped into line beside him. "Yeah, how did you know?" he asked, blinking. The kid had seemed so out of it after the… incident. Caden was surprised he had even taken notice of him.

"I recognize your picture from the back of your books," Jordan replied quietly. "You look different in real life. Not by much, but still different."

"In what way?" Caden asked. They turned on to Redhaven Boulevard.

"You seem a bit brighter. Not intellectually, just… more illuminated, somehow. Your pictures are just that, pictures. In person I can sorta see gears turning behind your eyes, like you're thinking about writing a story even now."

He was right. Caden's brain had been going non-stop since early that afternoon, like an action film that had just reached the most potent scene. He could see himself writing this, this whole series of fucked up events. He could see his fingers madly pounding away at his keyboard while the images replayed themselves fresh in his mind's eye: his agent's office, the _**Treasure Trove,**_ the park, the man –

"Huh. Well that's an interesting outlook, and I'm not going to deny it," Caden replied. "You've read my books?"

"Most of them," Jordan said. "_Cryptic_ was my favourite."

"And incidentally the most disturbing," Caden pointed out. Talking to the kid felt good. It was a way for him to escape the dread reality of what was going on around him.

"I don't get disturbed easily," Jordan said. "At least, not until – well, I mean the books don't bother me," he finished, eyes dark. He was thinking about the park.

"That's impressive," Caden replied, understanding that Jordan did not want to bring the subject up. "That one was pretty difficult to write. It even disturbed me, and I wrote the damn thing. In any case, it's always nice to meet a fan."

They moved onto Parkland Drive. Caden noticed straightaway that the street was packed with vehicles. Most were crashed, wrecked and dented. Others were simply abandoned, their doors wide open. Several were still running, keys in the ignition.

"Oh, Christ," the kid called Ben whispered from behind him. A grey Honda Civic was crushed between a black Mercedes Benz and a telephone pole. The hood of the Honda was completely smashed in, issuing clouds of dark smoke. The window on the front and driver's side was shattered, and the door wide open. Within the car was a young woman, a glass shard impaled in her throat. A shocking amount of blood had dripped out of the open door and pooled on the ground beside her. In the backseat, there was a trail of blood smeared across the seat that continued onto the pavement and away down the street, as though someone had been dragged kicking and screaming away from the car.

Caden's stomach twisted.

_We need to hurry._

They continued down the street. "How much farther?" Nathan asked him. Caden turned briefly. "Only a couple more blocks. We'll be there soon."

He weaved his way through the mass of wrecked cars, stepping carefully over broken glass shards that littered the ground like a blanket. They crunched audibly underneath his feet. When he passed Bolton's Books at the corner of Parkland and Summerfield, he saw a flash of movement in the darkening street. A silhouette in the half-light, shambling and stumbling through the vehicle wreckage. Then another. And another.

_Shit._

Caden held up his hand. "Quietly," he whispered. "I think more of the crazy people are nearby."

The teenagers looked around warily. Nathan shook his sleeves back and Jordan, despite his misgivings, hefted the bat securely in his arms. The shadows moaned quietly as they approached the group. However, they were far enough away for Caden and the others to slip past.

"Quick, we'll go around them," Caden said in a low tone. "We're almost there. Come on."

Quietly, hearts pounding, they went.

xxxx

They arrived at the Summerfield Inn about five minutes later. The door was locked, and the lights on the inside were turned off. The lobby was dark and looked empty.

Caden stepped past Jordan and frowned as he peered through the glass into the dark lobby. "Shit. I don't know what's going on but it looks deserted in there."

"You still have a key, though, right?" Michael asked, glancing warily up and down the street. Caden shook his head. "I have a key for my room. Not one for the lobby."

"Fuck," Nathan whispered. Todd motioned towards the aluminum bat in Jordan's hand. "Fine. So we break in then." Jordan shook his head. "We might need to barricade ourselves in here in case more of the crazies find us. They'll get in in two seconds if we break through the glass."

"So what do we do then?" Ben asked, agitated. "We can't just wait around here for those things to get us."

Jordan turned to look at Michael, who was, inexplicably, smiling.

"My dad gave me a lock pick set for my birthday," he said, pulling a set of pin tumbler locks and torsion bars out of his back pocket. "I've been testing them for a while. Finally got it down."

"Nice," Jordan said approvingly as his friend hunched over the lock, silver flashing in his hand. In less than a minute the door swung open before them.

"Awesome!" Ben said, and Michael took a bow, twirling an invisible top hat in his hand. Jordan rolled his eyes but grinned in relief, quickly ushering the others through the doorway. When they were all inside, he shut the door behind them, locking it again.

"So now what, Caden?" Nathan asked, looking up and down the dark lobby. The reception desk lay slightly ahead and to the left of the doorway. A pair of elevators lay to the right. A staircase winded up towards the upper floors at the other end of the lobby.

The author motioned to the stairs. "We go up to my room and see if the TVs are working. Then we wait to hear from the authorities." None of the others had a better plan, so Jordan prepared to follow Caden up the stairs. They were halfway across the lobby when suddenly a voice drifted out of the shadows.

"Who the hell are you?"

Jordan whirled around, the others a split second behind them, as someone materialized out of the darkened corner of the lobby. In the shadowy room it was difficult to make him out, but it appeared to be a red-haired man in his mid forties. Jordan tightened his grip on the bat. The man didn't sound too friendly.

"I'm Caden Ross. I'm a guest at this hotel," Caden said from behind him. The man frowned. "I work at this hotel. Or at least, I used to. Some fucked up shit hit the fan and suddenly people started going crazy and killing each other. Fuck, some of them ate each other."

"We know," Jordan said. "We saw them."

"Well, this is my place, and you can't stay here," the man continued, glaring at them. "How do I know you're not all fucked up like everybody else out there?"

For a split second Jordan wanted to slap him. "For one thing, we haven't tried tearing your face off yet," he snapped. "This is a fucking hotel. It's big enough for all of us. We're with a paying guest and we're going upstairs and checking what the news is. You try to stop us and I'll break your kneecaps."

Jordan was surprised at himself. The flare of rage he had felt had vanished almost as quickly as it had come. _I'm just stressed,_ he told himself. _I killed someone, after all. I'm really stressed._

His words, however, had had a profound effect on the red-haired man. He looked somewhat shocked. His mouth opened several times, but no noise came out. After several seconds he grunted and nodded his consent.

Jordan nodded back. "Good. We're going to the third floor. Is the rest of the building empty?"

"I'm not sure," the man said. "After everything went crazy, most of the guests ran out. They panicked. I don't know if any are left, but I haven't heard any noises come from upstairs yet, so there might not be any of the crazy ones up there."

"Is the cable still working? The radio?" Ben asked, stepping forward. The man shrugged. "I haven't checked."

Jordan opened his mouth to reply when something thudded against the door. They all whirled and to Jordan's shock he saw the same redheaded girl in the yellow tank top that he had seen at the park. She pounded on the door, her eyes wide with fear.

"What the – ?" Caden started, when suddenly the girl let out a loud scream, looking over her shoulder. A stumbling group of shadows were converging upon her from behind.

"I'm letting her in!" Jordan said, making for the door, but the red haired man strode forward and seized his arm. "You can't! What if she got attacked or something and she becomes like them? And we let her in here? She could kill us!"

"And she'll be killed if we leave her out there!" Jordan argued fiercely. The girl screamed again as the figures drew closer. Now Jordan could make out their individual features. Pale skin, glassy eyes that had rolled back into their heads, blood-streaked faces – they looked like corpses. The closest one, a middle-aged man that had had the left side of his face torn open, was less than fifteen feet away from the girl, who was staring right at him with a desperate look in her eyes.

"I'm letting her in, _right now_!" he yelled, stepping forward and flicking the lock. He wrenched the doorway open just as the corpse-thing in the doorway seized the girl by the arm and moaned loudly.

The girl let out a scream and tried to pull away, but the man held fast. Groaning, his jaw moving up and down, the man brought his pallid, bloody face to the girl's throat.

Jordan stabbed forward with the bat, slamming the man straight in the face with the bat's tip. The man's nose broke and blood gushed down his face, and he stumbled back. Jordan stepped forward to close the door, but another pale-faced, moaning creature had shoved its way into the door. This one was a middle-aged woman missing her right hand. Not only that, but her entire front had been torn open. Her clothes were ripped and tattered, and there was a gaping hole at her chest where she had been completely disemboweled. Thin white ribs showed through her chest, and blood dripped from the gaping wound as intestines slowly slid from the hole.

The woman leaned forward to bite him, and Jordan couldn't move fast enough to bring up the bat, but then Michael was there, shoving one of his lock picks right into the woman's eye, which burst and showered blood and fluid all down her face as she stumbled back –

And Todd leaped forward and slammed the door shut, locking it behind him. Several of the corpse people outside pressed against the glass, leaving bloody smears behind, moaning. Ben and Nathan stared wide eyed at them. Jordan, however, was concentrating on the girl who was clutching him tightly, sobbing into his shoulder through her auburn hair.

"Shh, it's okay," he said, patting the girl's back awkwardly, shooting a quick glance at the doorway. "You're safe now."

The girl continued to sob, her face still hidden in his shoulder, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Caden quickly motioned for the red haired hotel worker to help him block the doorway. The two men quickly moved off to the lobby desk, returning several seconds later with two large chairs which the wedged under the doorknobs.

"What's your name?" Jordan asked the girl, who was still crying. "A – Anna," the girl hiccoughed, her shoulders trembling.

"Come on, honey," Caden said gently. "Come upstairs, I have a key to one of the rooms here. We'll be safer up there. Come on…" Comforting, cajoling, he eased the girl out of Jordan's shocked embrace and away to the stairs. Casting a nervous glance over his shoulders at the moving forms of the creatures pressing against the doorway, Jordan followed him.


	5. Into Arklay

_THE RACOON CITY TIMES_  
**September 19, 1998  
BODY FOUND IN ARKLAY REGION**

_The body of Maria Cooper, 29, was discovered in the Arklay Mountains by a group of joggers. Maria's corpse was located in the vicinity of White Water Rapids, near the outskirts of The Industrial District of Raccoon City. The Raccoon Police Department believes Maria was walking through the Arklay Woods after her work shift had ended, when she was attacked. The assault looks to be the work of a wild dog or a wolf, because of the teeth marks on her upper body and resemble the jaw pattern of a canine. In the meantime, the RPD urges extreme caution to citizens, and has constructed roadblocks near Route 42 at the foothills of the Arklay Region._

xxxx

_THE RACCOON CITY TIMES_  
**September 20, 1998  
HORROR IN RACCOON CITY! TWO MORE VICTIMS DISCOVERED**

_Despite heavy police investigation and inquiry into the cannibal murders, it seems as though the danger plaguing Raccoon City is not yet at an end. Today at 1:30 a.m. the bodies of Darnell Fabians and Alice Howard were discovered in the ravine of Reservoir Park. Fabians, 21, and Howard, 20, were found by police officer Jeff Garrison on patrol duty. Upon the discovery of the bodies, Garrison conducted a search of the area, and found several paw prints leading off into the forested ravine. This latest development resembles the similar attack yesterday, suggesting that the murderers of Darnell Fabians and Alice Howard are of the canine family._

_Alice and Darnell mark the eighth and ninth victims of the alleged "cannibal killers." Both casualties bore the same signs of being partially devoured by their assailants. Alice, in fact, was almost unrecognizable due to the savagery of the attack, and family members had difficulty in successfully identifying her._

_Mayor Michael Warren has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon, regarding the issue of the cannibal killers and the measures being taken against them. Many citizens are frightened by the Raccoon Police Department's apparent lack of progress into the murders, so it is widely believed that stricter measures are called for._

xxxx

_THE RACCOON CITY TIMES_  
**September 23, 1998  
MORE VICTIMS DEAD: ATTACK IN INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT**

_The disfigured corpse of another Raccoon City resident was discovered last night, in the middle of an abandoned warehouse parking lot. This latest victim is one Erik Manheim, tenant of a small condo on the border of the Industrial District and the Residential District. Manheim's body was discovered at 9:30 p.m. by a construction worker, Mr. Jack Bell. An investigation of Erik Manheim's body showed that he had suffered the same symptoms of attack as the previous four victims. Manheim's body and face were partially eaten, although a difference in this case is that the bite patterns matched human jaws._

_This despicable murder is the latest in a series of gruesome crimes that the police have dubbed to be the work of "cannibal killers." Several eyewitness reports have dictated that the victims were attacked by a group of more than seven people._

_Shortly after the discovery of Erik Manheim, Raccoon Police Chief Brian Irons made a public statement urging the public community to remain attentive, and that the Raccoon Police Department was working thoroughly on apprehending the perpetrators of these gruesome crimes._

xxxx

Jeff Garrison frowned as he turned the newspaper article over in his hands, skimming through its contents as the police cruiser headed up the dirt path to the Arklay Mountains. More and more events like this were cropping up, and it was happening at an alarming scale now. Earlier, there had been freak incidents, completely random, but generally occurring within a similar radius. Now, the alleged "cannibal killings" that echoed the tales issued several months previously by the S.T.A.R.S. force were occurring at a frightening rate, and mounting.

What he had seen in that ravine… it was indescribable. Jeff shuddered at the mere thought of such savagery: what could compel anything to attack with such viciousness? He couldn't remember ever seeing a more gruesome corpse.

"How much further?" he asked. The noise of the city behind him was fading away, being replaced by the deathly stillness of the black trees of the forest. Darkness was falling rapidly, dusk being replaced by night. Jeff looked out the cruiser window at the silent trees that were flashing by them, their shadows ominous in the moonlight.

"Five minutes until we reach the top," Hank Tyler said, fingers drumming a beat on the steering wheel. His messy brown hair was disheveled and unkempt, as always. Beside him, his partner James Brown was poring over a sheaf of police papers, his lips pulled tight in a grimace.

Jeff turned back to watching the trees fly by. Beside him, another cop was sitting, his chin propped up on his hand, staring out the window with a bored expression on his face. He yawned widely.

"Perk up, Andy," Jeff said. "We can't have you falling asleep up here."

"Well, forgive me for being tired," Andy said gruffly. "Irons has had me working overtime on these stupid cases – and I've been behind a desk for the past three weeks! I haven't had more than a wink of sleep."

"And we have?" James quipped from the front seat. Andy scowled. "I just wish I could kip for a bit before being sent out into the field."

"Well," Jeff said grimly, "if I'm not mistaken, something out here is going to wake you up."

They drove on, winding through the dark night on the dirt path, the car headlights the only source of illumination. The sounds of the city had fallen completely dead. The only noise was the rumble of the car engine, and the crunch of dirt beneath the tires.

"This is as far as we go," Hank said, pulling to a stop at the top of the path, where it thinned out and became blocked by trees. "We'll have to go on foot from here." He twisted the keys in the ignition, shutting off the engine. The silence around them became suddenly pronounced and stiff, as though it could cut.

Jeff opened his door and climbed out of the car, looking around at the dark forest. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared amongst the trees, and they remained motionless and cold in the night air, apart from the rustling of their branches and leaves. Hank got out of the driver seat and stood out in the night, one hand resting on the open door. "We'd better take a look around," he said, peering through the trees. "We should probably split up to cover more ground."

"Good idea," James agreed, stepping out of the front passenger seat and staring into the trees. The dirt path twisted and split into three separate trails, vanishing into the black woods beyond them. Jeff issued quick orders. "I'll take the left path. Hank, you take the right. James, go straight ahead. Andy, since you're so tired, you can watch the car and man the radio."

"Fine by me," Andy said cheerfully, closing his door with a loud _snap_ and walking around the car to stand next to Hank. "I've got no intention of getting my ass killed."

Jeff ignored him. "If you find anything unusual, just radio in. Andy, if anything happens here, call us back. We'll meet back here in thirty if none of us find anything. We clear?"

"Got it," Hank said. James and Andy nodded. Jeff sighed quietly. He felt some qualms about splitting up, given what had happened in these trees just days previously, but he didn't really have a choice. He flicked the clasps securing his USP handgun in place, and removed it, twirling it once around his finger until he stopped it in its original position, his finger ready on the trigger.

"Good luck then, fellow comrades," Hank said, popping the trunk of the cruiser and pulling out a lethal looking shotgun. Jeff recognized it as a Benelli M4 Super 90. It had superior handling and was a must for quick aiming. Hank cocked it with a loud snap that seemed deafening in the night. "Let's move out."

The other cops nodded. "Good luck," Jeff said, and he turned and walked into the darkness as Andy sat back in the driver's seat. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw James heading into the dark with his pistol out, and Hank going off to the right, hefting his shotgun.

Jeff slowly made his way through the forest, his gun out in front of him. After several minutes, he realized that without light, he wouldn't be able to see enough of whatever was out there until it was too late. He pulled his flashlight out with his other hand, holding it over his pistol. The bright yellow beam cut a swath through the darkness, illuminating a rough cylinder of the dark forest before him. His gun's barrel followed the flashlight's every move.

Jeff continued through the forest, uncomfortably aware of leaves and twigs cracking loudly beneath his feet. He walked slowly, passing over everything in sight with his gun and flashlight. The stiffening silence was beginning to get to him. Then, quite suddenly, as he was stumping past a fallen tree branch that jutted upward like skeletal fingers, he heard it.

It was a low, quiet moan, nearly indistinguishable in the quiet. Jeff stopped in his tracks, listening intently, his ears straining. There was quiet for another second and then –

There it was again! This time the moan was louder, as though whatever had made it was coming closer. Jeff swallowed and crept forward, finger sweaty on the trigger. Those moans didn't sound human.

Suddenly something lumpy appeared in the constantly moving beam of light before him. He swung his light back to settle on it. Slowly moving forwards, Jeff walked up to the thing and peered down at it, his pistol leveled at it.

It was a body. A young male, to be precise. There were numerous bite marks marring its arms and chest, with shredded skin hanging in tendrils from the red teeth marks. The man's face had a flap of skin torn from the corner of its mouth, which hung in a morbidly comic fashion from his lip. One of its eyes had been partially gouged out and was dangling on its cheek. Lastly, several fingers were missing from its right hand, whereas the two remaining ones were partially stripped of flesh.

Jeff felt something rise inside him and bit back a wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. _Just like at Reservoir Park. _He tentatively leaned over the body, prodding at it with the tip of his boot. It didn't move. Gritting his teeth, Jeff leaned over and patted the corpse's pockets, searching for a wallet or an identification. There was none. The rotting smell of the corpse was almost enough to make him hurl. Jeff shakily straightened up, his stomach queasy. What on earth would _do_ that to a human?

The young cop reached for his radio, when suddenly a red light appeared on it and it signaled. Hank or James was calling him. Jeff pulled his handheld radio from his belt and held it to his ear.

"I found something," James's voice cut through the clearing. It seemed unnaturally loud. "Looks like a mangled and cannibalized corpse. Something… was eating it. I don't know what. I can't believe this…"

"I got something too," Jeff replied. "Young male, likely aged 24 to 27. Facial features hard to distinguish because of the attack. No ID."

"Jeff, what the fuck is going on out here? This isn't right."

"No kidding."

"I wonder if –"

But what James wondered, Jeff never found out. At that moment, he heard something in the background over the radio. Suddenly, James let out a scream. A bloodcurdling, terrified scream. "No! Jesus Christ, stay back! Noooooo!"

Several loud gunshots sounded. Jeff heard them both over the radio as thunderclaps and, very faintly, in the distance. Another horrible scream followed soon afterward. "James!" Jeff yelled into the radio, but suddenly it cut out. All he received was static. "Damn it!" he cursed, and he turned and started to run towards the gunshots, when he heard something move behind him.

Jeff slowly turned around to see the corpse on the ground twitch. Then, as he looked on in horror, it used its arms and pushed itself up to a rising position! The corpse was illuminated by his flashlight as it climbed to its feet, a pool of black blood beneath it. It began to stumble towards him, issuing a soft moaning sound exactly like what he had heard earlier. A moan that echoed with hunger.

"Stay back!" Jeff yelled, training his gun on the creature. It paid no heed to his voice, but kept coming, arms stretched out as though to embrace him, hands covered in a mess of gore where its fingers used to be. "I'm warning you! I'm RPD! That's far enough!" The corpse continued towards him, uncaring of his threats. Jeff swore under his breath and pulled the trigger of his USP.

A spray of blood flew from the thing's kneecap as the bullet smashed through the bone. But – it was impossible – the corpse _hardly reacted!_

_What the fuck _are_you?_ Jeff thought in a panic. First a fucking corpse was getting to its feet and walking around. Next, he had just shot it so that it should never be able to walk again, and it didn't seem to have even felt it!

Jeff squeezed of three more shots. Each found their mark, one striking the corpse in the chest, another in the shoulder, and lastly in the creature's mutilated eye socket. A sickening squelch sounded, and the creature dropped to the earthy ground, dark blood leaking from its wounds.

"What the hell is that thing?" Jeff whispered. He stepped towards it, but suddenly remembered James. He turned tail and ran.

Jeff darted through the trees as fast as he could, their branches snagging his uniform. Several more gunshots reverberated in the distance, and Jeff doubled his pace. Rapidly, he ran through the trees until he burst into another clearing.

James was lying on the ground… or at least, what was left of him was. Above him, a huge green reptilian creature was hunched over, tearing chunks of flesh from his body with its mammoth jaws. Dagger-like teeth jutted from its mouth, and as it looked up and gazed at him with its bright orange eyes, similar to those of a cat, he bit back a scream. James' arm was caught between its teeth, pieces of flesh dripped from its bloody jaws and slapping wetly on the ground. Huge claws, gleaming wickedly in the moonlight, stretched from its green paws, covered with blood.

Jeff gaped in fear and astonishment. The thing looked like some sort of mutated lizard or something. As he stared in shock, the reptile dropped what remained of James's arm, and took a step towards him, snarling. Jeff, panic and amazement threatening to overwhelm him, stumbled back. As the creature advanced on him, he quickly clipped his flashlight back onto his belt, aimed his handgun, and fired.

The shot connected with the creature's shoulder, but seemed to do little more than aggravate it. It gave a high pitched screeching sound that was almost enough to shatter glass. Jeff fired again, but the thing gave a feral snarl and leaped at him, covering an astonishing distance as it soared through the air. Jeff abandoned his efforts to shoot it and ducked, feeling a rush of wind as the huge creature flew over him. As it landed and skidded, turning for another attack, Jeff took off.

He ran as fast as he could, looking over his shoulder and squeezing off three more shots. The first missed, but the second clipped the lizard thing in the chest. Blood poured like a fountain from the wound, coursing down its pale white belly. The last went astray, and the creature screeched again and picked up speed as its clawed feet thudded heavily into the dirt.

xxxx

Back at the car, Andy had stuffed headphones into his ear and was bobbing his head slightly as his MP3 player's rock music thundered in his ears. The sound was so loud that he couldn't hear the noise of slow, shuffling footsteps approaching the car from the dark trees.

xxxx

Jeff ran for his life, his breath harsh and quick as his lungs begged for air. He turned to fire again, worried about the mere four remaining shots in his clip, when he unexpectedly tripped. He brought his hands forward to break his fall and crashed into the ground, grunting as the rocks in the dirt path scraped against his palms. His gun went flying several feet away, clattering loudly against the base of a tree. The lizard creature shrieked in triumph and leaped at him. _This is it,_ Jeff thought. _I'm going to die._

xxxx

Andy stuffed several chips into his open mouth and crunched loudly as he listened to Megadeth roaring in his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something move in the side view mirror.

Andy pulled out an earphone and got out of the car, sighing. "James? That you? You were supposed to radio in." He crunched several more chips, staring into the trees. But there was nothing there.

Frowning, Andy shrugged and went back to the open door, climbing into the cruiser. He upped the volume, just as a dark piece of the forest disengaged from the trees and melted towards the open door.

xxxx

Out of the blue, several shots rang out. They were not, however, the small shots from a pistol. They were louder, and much more powerful. A large and gaping hole appeared in the lizard's waist in mid-leap, throwing it off balance. The lizard gave another earsplitting screech, crashing into the dirt, its clawed legs slicing the air. Another bloody chunk of bullet holes appeared on the thing's right forearm, and shot off several claws on its left rear leg.

As the creature roared in agony, Jeff looked up, hardly able to believe his luck. Standing at the tree line was Hank, his smoking shotgun in his hands. "Jeff, this way!" he yelled, shooting two more times before turning and running off. The lizard thing was struck once more, but managed to dodge the final shot. It got to its feet, blood dripping from its decimated flesh. Growling in rage, it charged again.

Jeff leaped to his feet and snatched his gun up from the ground, and took off after Hank. He quickly caught up to Hank, who was burdened by the heavy shotgun as he ran. Jeff pulled ahead, turning and shooting once more. Then, noticing the creature was steadily gaining on Hank, yelled out, "Hank, look out!"

The warning came too late. The lizard suddenly leaped again and collided with Hank, bringing them both to the ground in a cloud of dust. Its claws raked across his chest, while its mouth seized a chunk of his bicep and bit down.

Hank bellowed in agony, trying in vain to throw the creature off of him as it savaged his arm and body. Jeff moved forwards, grabbing Hank's shotgun from where it had fallen. He ran up behind the creature, aimed right at it, and fired.

This time, the shot found its mark. The right portion of the creature's face was obliterated, spewing clouds of gore into the air. Its partially headless body slumped to the ground, staining the earth even darker. Hank moaned beside it.

"Hank!" Jeff cried, slinging the shotgun over his shoulder and crouching beside the bloody mess of an officer. "Are you okay?"

"No," he gasped in response, looking fearfully at his wounds. "Here…" he reached out with a trembling hand and dropped a clip into Jeff's hand. "Go to the car… take it and go… get back to the city, tell the Chief…"

"Not without you," Jeff said firmly, seizing Hank by the waist and hauling him up; the man groaned again as blood seeped from his gashes. "Save it Jeff, I'm done," he choked. Jeff shook his head. "We can still get you out of here alive. Come on, put your arm around my neck…"

Jeff managed to pull Hank to a relative standing position, and then began half carrying, half dragging him along the path, leaving the lizard creature lying in a pool of its own blood. He pulled Hank along, stumbling down the path. Now, the only sounds were Hank's labored breathing. What if there were more of those… things around? Could he react fast enough to save themselves?

As Jeff walked, preoccupied and nervous with his own thoughts, the car came into view ahead. It was idling, smoke issuing from its exhaust pipe in small streams. "Look, Hank, there's the squad car," Jeff said, sounding relieved. "You're going to be okay. We'll get you to a hospital." Hank coughed slightly, and blood splattered the dirt. Jeff felt a stab of fear. "Just hold on, man."

He half-dragged the wounded officer toward the car. "Andy?" he yelled. "Andy, give me a hand here, Hank's been hurt!"

There was no response. Frowning, Jeff shuffled closer, and saw something that made his blood run cold.

The door of the police car was wide open, and the interior was splattered with blood.

"Andy?" Jeff whispered, looking around furtively. Every shadow seemed to be moving. He felt fear rise in him, and he struggled to quash it. He could not afford to fall apart now. "Andy?"

But the other officer was nowhere to be found.

Jeff pulled Hank over to the driver's side of the car, walking around the front hood. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks.

Andy's MP3 player was lying in the dirt. It was still on; he could hear the faint rock music coming from the speakers. About a foot away lay a discarded handgun. And clutching it was…

"Jesus," Hank whispered, and Jeff could not respond. A severed hand was wrapped tight around the pistol, shreds of torn skin hanging from its bloody, ripped end. A pool of blood was slowly spreading from the mutilated hole.

"Fuck," Jeff whispered. "What the fuck happened to him?"

"What if…" Hank choked, and spat another cloud of blood onto the dirt path. "What if one of those monsters got him?"

Jeff didn't say anything. If Andy had been listening to his MP3 player that loudly, and one of them had sneaked on him…

"We've got to go," Jeff whispered. He felt guilty and horrible, as though he was abandoning his friend. But Hank was wounded. He had no choice but to get him to a hospital, or he would die from his wounds. Already he was growing pale.

"Just hang on," Jeff instructed, hauling Hank around to the passenger side, and slowly settling him into the seat. He then hurried around and got into the driver's seat, wincing in revulsion as he settled against the blood-soaked seat.

The keys were still in the ignition. Jeff placed his hands on the steering wheel, and was about to pull into reverse when suddenly there was a loud crash from next to him. Jeff looked over, startled, to see Hank's door open. In the doorway was…

…Andy! But there was something wrong with him - his face was dry and its skin was cracked, and its mouth was covered with blood. He looked like one of his cheeks had been torn off. Hank screamed, raised his pistol with one feeble hand, and pulled the trigger, only to hear a soft clicking noise.

It was empty.

Andy's corpse gave a moan and sank its teeth into Hank's neck, where his shoulder met his collar. Hank screamed even louder as Andy shook his head back and forth, shredding his neck, before ripping his head back and taking a chunk of Hank with him. Blood sprayed from the gaping wound. Hank spluttered, his throat obstructed by pouring blood, and eyes rolled back in his head.

"No!" Jeff screamed. He reached out with one hand and punched the thing as hard as he could. Unsteady on its precarious perch on the edge of the car seat, Andy's dead body fell backwards onto the ground. Jeff scrambled out of the car and hurried around to the other side, all the while shouting, "stay with me, Hank!"

He swung the shotgun from his shoulder, propping its butt against his shoulder and taking aim at Andy as he slowly rose. He hesitated for only a split second, before he pulled the trigger. Andy's head exploded in a mass of blood and bone. Chunks of brain splattered the edge of the car.

Jeff darted to Hank's side immediately. "Hank…" he gasped, opening the glove compartment and pulling out a bunch of napkins, and hurriedly pressing them into the wound on Hank's neck. Hank had grown still and was twitching occasionally. "Hank, stay with me!_Stay with me, Hank!"_

Jeff's plea had no effect. With a harsh whisper, a breath left Hank's lips, and he slumped down in the seat. He didn't move or breathe.

"No," Jeff whispered, not moving. Blood still poured from Hank's open wounds, as he slumped in the seat with his head down. Slowly, Jeff released the pressure from his neck, and many dripping red napkins fluttered to the car floor.

Jeff was about to turn away when Hank's face snapped up. His eyes shone with an unholy and hungry light. His mouth was open, and he lunged at Jeff's throat!

Jeff yelled in alarm and tried to jump back, but Hank seized his throat and pulled. Hank's icy fingers were surprisingly strong, wrapped around his throat like steel vices. He hissed loudly and tried to sink his teeth into Jeff's face. Jeff struggled as best as he could, attempting to choke air into his lungs while struggling to pry Hank's dead fingers from his throat. The shotgun was lying two feet away on the ground, out of reach.

"Hank! Stop!" Jeff yelled, as he struggled to keep the thing away from his face, but it snarled and snapped as it tried to fasten its teeth on his flesh. Jeff gave up trying to reason and punched it in the face. He heard a loud crack as several of Hank's teeth broke and fell to the ground. Jeff, hating himself, hit Hank again, and again, and again. Now Hank's right eye was crooked in his socket, and his nose was broken and gushing blood.

Hank was dazed, and Jeff managed to shove him off, back into the seat of the car. As Hank hit the seat, Jeff scrambled backwards on the ground, until he felt the cold barrel of the shotgun in his hand. As Hank began to rise for another attack, Jeff aimed the shotgun at his face and pulled the trigger.

Most of Hank's head exploded. Blood and brain fluid splattered the car and dashboard. Jeff felt something twist in his stomach, and turned his head to the side, unceremoniously spraying the earth with vomit. Gagging, he stumbled to his feet, a trickle of it clinging to the edge of his lips. He stumbled away from the scene of carnage, his heart going a mile a minute as he massaged his aching throat.

"I'm sorry," Jeff whispered to no one. The forest was silent and unforgiving around him. Jeff turned away and checked the shotgun's clip. It was empty. He went to the trunk, opened it, and pulled out a case of ammunition. He reloaded the shotgun and then slid several cartridges of extra ammunition into a pack at his belt before walking over to Andy's severed hand and yanking the pistol out of it.

It took a surprising amount of effort to free the gun from those cold, dead fingers.

After Jeff pulled the handgun away, he turned back to the car. He had get back to Raccoon City and report this all to Chief Brian Irons. Something was seriously wrong in the Arklay Mountains.

Jeff slowly walked towards the driver's seat, and suddenly felt as though he had been punched. A stray bullet from his shotgun blast had struck the ignition and blown the key apart. The ignition was ruined, partially melted, and so was the key. There was no way he could drive the car now.

"Fuck," Jeff muttered, slowly reaching into the car, his head turned away from Hank's decimated corpse. The stench coming from him was overwhelming. He fumbled blindly at Hank's belt, until he had pulled the three spare handgun clips away. He tucked them into his ammo pack, before wandering over to Andy's similarly mutilated body and taking his spare clips as well.

When he had loaded up on all the ammo he had, Jeff Garrison reloaded his pistol, slung the shotgun over his back, and quickly headed down the dirt path. It should have been four police officers, heading down towards the city again.

But now only one ran down into the darkened night of Raccoon City.

xxxx

Jon walked down the hallways of the lab, his face carefully blank as he passed a security guard. The man looked at him briefly, then turned away. Jon was just another scientist to him – another geeky, brainy, egomaniacal scientist. He couldn't be bothered.

Good. That was the way Jon wanted it.

The halls around him were a pandemonium of activity. Scientists, his colleagues, rushed to and fro, looking scared and harried, clutching stacks of paper to their chests. As he passed several computer laps, analysts were busily typing at their stations, backing up files, transferring the more important ones, and printing their vital data. All the while, a loud, blaring voice issued from the P.A. system.

"_All personnel are required to back up their findings three times on separate research discs. After doing so, please proceed to security checkpoints. Your families are being attended to. There is no need to panic."_

Jon didn't know a lot of things. What he did know was that there was no _way_ a Code Red infection status possibly meant no panic. It was a definite cause for panic. By the way things were going, the entire city would be overrun in a day.

_And it's all my fault._

Jon slipped through the mass of rushing bodies and disappeared into a fire escape, keying his employee number into the keypad to disable the fire alarm. He shut the doorway carefully behind him, and began to ascend the stairs, which were bathed in blood red light from the bulbs lining the wall.

His footsteps echoed loudly in the stairwell. The noise from the other hallways was completely deadened in here.

When he emerged at the ground floor, he pushed the door open and strode out into the hallway. This one was deserted. There were no offices on the ground floor, he knew. Ground floor was reception and administration. The sub-basement levels, where he worked, were the genetic testing levels and biological research divisions. The entirety of floors 2 – 40 were office stations, with different designations. Floor 41 was the Administrator's private penthouse. Floor 42 was the roof, as well as the Conference Chamber for the different branches of Umbrella.

Jon glanced hesitantly around before heading down the hall toward reception. As he walked through the pristine halls, he began to hear the sounds of activity in the background. He slapped his forehead, cursing. Of course reception would be busy – all hands would be working due to Olsen's orders. Nobody would be able to check in our out. If he wanted to get out of the facility, he would have to find another way. But where?

He stood debating for several seconds before reaching a conclusion. Of course – the parking lot. Nobody was going to be hanging around the rear entrance. Olsen would have shut down clearance for access to the lot in the light of the infection – but that wasn't a problem. He'd just knock a guard out and take the override code.

Feeling slightly better now that he had a plan, Jon turned on his heel and began making his way through the deserted back halls toward the parking complex, his heart thudding in his ears. Samantha was in danger.

After several minutes of walking, he peeked around the corner leading to the lot. Sure enough, two guards were standing on either side of the gleaming doorway. Jon ducked back out of sight, ruffling through his bag until he felt the cold steel of the pistol underneath his fingers. He pulled it out and stuffed it into his lab coat, before closing the bag and taking a deep breath. Then he walked brazenly down the hallway towards the guards.

They saw him coming and immediately snapped upright. "This is a restricted area now," one of the guards said. "You don't have the authorization to be here."

"I've been granted clearance from Charles Olsen, head of the Delta Complex and Administrator of the facility," Jon said smoothly, not slowing his pace until he stopped before the two guards. "I have important research data in my car that he ordered me to retrieve on the T-series project. Here's my clearance card." Jon held out the card, praying this would work.

The guard's eyes narrowed suspiciously as he took the card and stared at it. "I hadn't heard anything about this," he said slowly. "Rick, did you?"

"Nothing," the other guard replied. "I'll have to radio in to check with the Mr. Olsen." He reached for the radio at his belt and tugged it out.

Jon's hands began to sweat. He could not afford to have that call go through. It was time for drastic measures.

He suddenly flung his bag forward at the guard with the radio, hitting him in the face and causing the guard to stumble backwards in surprise. At the same time he kicked out with all his force at the other guard's stomach.

His foot connected and the man went down like a sack of potatoes, wheezing. But the other guard was already pulling his pistol. Jon immediately dove forward, seizing the man's wrist and shoving him backward with all his strength.

But Jon had underestimated the security guards. They were employed by Umbrella – they were the best. The guard twisted out of his grasp, using Jon's momentum to reverse the throw and hurl him into the wall. Jon slammed into it with a grunt, falling heavily on his back before the guard. The second guard, who he had kicked, was struggling to his feet and drawing his pistol, breathing hard.

"Don't fucking move," the guard who had thrown him spat. "Or I'll blow your fucking brains out."

Jon froze. He felt the steel of his gun on his belt. He struggled to remain still. If he could just reach it…

"Get his bag," the guard called Rick said, motioning to it. "Make sure he didn't steal anything."

The first guard hurried over to the dropped shoulder bag and began to ruffle through it. Rick turned slightly to watch him, and for a brief moment took his eyes away from Jon.

That was all he needed. Fast as lightning, he whipped the handgun from the folds of his lab coat. Rick saw the movement and whirled around, but Jon had already fired. The loud, thunderous shot ripped through the air and punched a dark red hole right above Rick's heart. Jon fired again at the other guard as he turned around, and he went down, a hole between his eyes.

Jon staggered to his feet, feeling sick. He had just killed two people in cold blood.

_And how many others have you killed? How many others, tied to a steel table, as you injected them? How many of them begged for their lives, knowing you were minutes away from taking them?_

_Shut the fuck up!_

Jon ruthlessly attempted to crush the voice in his head. He had no time for doubts. No time for second guesses. The city was going to hell, and he had to get home and find his wife.

He searched one of the guard's pockets until he found a security card, which he used to override the lock sequence. He darted outside into the darkness of the parking lot, shivering in the night air. He had to hurry. If anyone heard the shots they would be on their way.

He walked as quickly as he could towards his car, parked some distance away. And as he walked, in the back of his mind, he could hear the voices of all the people he had killed, screaming.


End file.
